I’ve been working hard to get the second issue designed and published. Finally, it’s here. I’ll work on the introduction more, but for now, please turn your attention to the wonderful poets and writers.
Issue Two
Front Matter
Fiction
No Milk Would Come
The other night I stopped for orange juice at the Pico station on the north side of Boerne, and I picked up this men’s magazine just to browse it, and then I wound up buying it because of this article about sex dolls so realistic you could dress them up and no one would know… Read more »
Through the Woven Door
As she wakes Linka feels the hopeless weight of failure at the discovery of another month’s flow seeping from her body. The flush glazed her thighs and stained the snow-white linen of her nightgown a fierce geranium red. Linka has longed for a child since she was a child. Even her daydreams are filled with… Read more »
Poetry
Advice to City Poets
Love your city skyline, its tallest buildings, shortest. Make these your holy places, more spiritual than forests, vaster than the choppy blue sea, truer than any church cross. Learn to love how we build beards on the face of the earth, stubble made from rubble. Love also, inside these obelisks, those who wander and speak,… Read more »
Fly. Away. Home.
Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire; Your children all roam. Except little Nan Who sits in her pan Weaving her laces as fast as she can. —Traditional English nursery rhyme, c. 1744 (var.) Give me the hush-hush, those first moments navigating to bed, before I crack the spine of a… Read more »
I Have Named You
With hands against my ears I have named you sonic boom, I have named you Doppler and scream and electric guitar. In rage I have named you ghost and pillow and thorn. I have named you with the taste of blood in my mouth, breath rasping, heart pounding wild rhythms in my heaving chest. I… Read more »
IKEA Recalls RUND Handmade Glass Mug
One of our best-selling mugs doubles as laceration hazard. Twelve reports worldwide of Rund glass mugs have broken while being used. In five cases, injuries resulted. An investigation revealed variations in glass thickness. Sleek and thin is not always in. Sharp edges are not compatible with soft lips. Blood is thicker than decaf. Customers are… Read more »
IKEA SNUTTING Recall
October 2002 – September 2003 Small Part Ingestion Hazard – IKEA SNUTTIG toy (700-371-56) Rock-a-Bye-Baby and the head breaks. Arms tear. Seems rip open from fuzzy limbs that bleed plastic beads. Beware: children may love them too much. Ingest them like Swedish candy. But lungs can’t function when foreign objects are inhaled. Breathing won’t work… Read more »
Matins
Grey birds lift slowly, part to roll as I come close. I cannot rise above my feet, held down by earth’s hard hands; on narrow tracks in shoes not meant for walking far, I walk. I speak of you to God in disjointed silences, teeth-gritting tears. If I could ask for one thing I would… Read more »
My Mother’s Remedy
My mother, in the hallway photo, would advise me to stir a spot of scotch in honey, blend it with tea to ease her grandson’s cough. I don’t pray to her though the photograph is saintly. Ancient. I am certain she would guide me to the proper cure. The soul of the house is not… Read more »
Playing the Prelude
Gliding my fingers like a wand, I touch, the labyrinths of air grown solid and spilling into black and white. I close my eyes, tilt my chin upward, move my hands legato through the secret veins of memory tracing its score upon the keys. I have forgotten the mistakes, which no longer matter and fall… Read more »
Solar Drive
You say it’s springtime, Darling but I don’t believe you. The houses on that hill have tired eyes and take labored breaths. Our feet would be cold on their bare floors, our voices too loud for so much dust and peeling paint. You say there is an echo, Darling but I hear nothing. There is… Read more »
Summer Fade
Rehoboth, Delaware The beach will fill up with colorful umbrellas soon. Children will play in the surf, letting it tickle their ankles and skimpering away when its froth licks up, coming for them. Older boys will slowly wade out, into the cold drift of deeper waters. The brave among them may splash the timid young… Read more »
The Quarantine Party
The plates are set; the silverware adjusted to its proper place; the napkins crisp inside their rings. Candlelight illuminates the wine, glasses glint below the chandeliers, and mirrors line the walls, behind each empty chair. Just two of us sit, at opposite ends of the long table, awaiting the arrival of our guests. The food… Read more »
Today
I’m not kneeling, wearing white. I tread and pray, stop to say hello; Remember something terrible; curse and pray. In Gap jeans, in bitterness, before I eat and after. I’m speaking to you, about why this happened, why that didn’t. There is no silence. Candles are not practical. I’m not in an Alpine monastery, a… Read more »
War Story #164: Explaining Why I Brought to Iraq But Couldn’t Open Weldon Kees’ Collected Poems
You must be trained to read it. You can’t just pick it up, swing back a page and — Go to town! And I was trained. I understood as well as anyone the danger of brandishing the book while every other day wanting to suck-start a 9mm pistol. I recognized the apocalypse he wrote of… Read more »