BY JESSICA LOVE My brother won’t eat the Costco strawberries, twenty giant strawberries in a carton the length of a twelve-pack. He sips his Coke and shakes his curly head. Not cool, he says. I’ve seen apples smaller than those berries. We watch the storm together, at Mom’s new place, watch as it turns from … Continue reading SUSTAINABLE LIVING
Category: Poetry
ON THE ART OF PATIENCE
BY JIM TILLEY With a Mozart concerto in the background and little to do as I waited for the next available associate to be with me shortly, I began to comprehend how one infinity can be larger than another, not in the sense of the mathematician who can prove that rational numbers are countable and … Continue reading ON THE ART OF PATIENCE
THE MECHANISM OF PLEASURE
BY KC TROMMER For A. H. The brain is three pounds of soft mass. It’s the consistency of pudding, one doctor told me, which put me off pudding afterwards. He gestured, motion of the finger going through it, and even made the wet sound for something—the knife?—sliding in. Easy to make a mistake. They worked … Continue reading THE MECHANISM OF PLEASURE
POST WAR COOKBOOKS
BY DANIEL BRENNER Form will save us from Looking like scoundrels Or worse Being taken to icy waters & rescued from secondhand Remnants of trees After the war they dripped ice & then got warm again They commended each other & were embarrassed They wrote cookbook after cookbook As if to say here is something … Continue reading POST WAR COOKBOOKS
METROPOLIS
BY LUCIA PERILLO “Let’s all watch as the world goes to the devil!” —Fritz Lang, 1926 She must have written Beauty’s how-to book: see the isotopes inside her veins, her literal veins, lit up under her skin, her liquidmetal jumpsuit skin, when the mad scientist throws the switch and her whole vascular system shines. I … Continue reading METROPOLIS
FOR MY FATHER, WHO FEARS I’M GOING TO HELL
BY CINDY MAY MURPHY and who last week spent three hours wading through the dregs of the just-drained pond whose former owner had assured him could not support life. Though as the last brown water gave way to grime, he bore witness to the rip-flash of five slivered backs struggling like sharks in sand—mudcats, he … Continue reading FOR MY FATHER, WHO FEARS I’M GOING TO HELL
DOVE AND DOVE
BY ANGELA SORBY Cote d’Azure, 1981 Paloma Picasso stands on the high dive wearing a black maillot. Below her, the photographer forgets the holy spirit’s ascension as he plunges into concentration: Paloma is vital—her perfume flies off shelves all over France. Above the photographer’s bent head a moth unspools its thirty hours of life, extending … Continue reading DOVE AND DOVE
Violence, Double Sestinas, and Barbie: An Interview with Denise Duhamel
Denise Duhamel is the author of seven books of poetry, the most recent of which are Two and Two, Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems, The Star-Spangled Banner, andKinky. She is a recipient of a NEA in poetry and currently teaches in Florida International University’s MFA program. Denise was kind enough to agree … Continue reading Violence, Double Sestinas, and Barbie: An Interview with Denise Duhamel
DEAR BLACKBIRD II
BY JANE SPRINGER Dear Blackbird, The only thing that made sense was to fall in love with a carpenter who could build a house upside down out of straw & standing on one foot— afterall, a scarecrow is just remnant stuffing for old clothes—it took a man like that to make of me, something new. … Continue reading DEAR BLACKBIRD II
DEAR BLACKBIRD I
BY JANE SPRINGER Dear Blackbird, The first summer after you left rolled in as a white & fine grained fog. The question became not: Where had you gone—but one of location, nevertheless, behind what curtain: The little farmhouse, its sputtering truck & tin shed. The field where trysting lovers met. The dissolution of it all. … Continue reading DEAR BLACKBIRD I
