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A Quintuple
by Simon Perchik
Here, there, the way silence / tows you below the waterline / and though you are alone / you’re not sure where her name / is floating on the surface / or what’s left
River Mouth
by Heather Dobbins
She hasn’t taken off her swimsuit all summer. She is two hands / across her middle. I know that from throwing her: one foot / on my thigh, the other in my palm. Up, over, splash.
Proctoring
by Michael Lauchlan
Among students, I drink the same / coffee I drank at home an hour / ago—which is not some philosophical metaphor.
Sefeed
by Mathew Javidi
If I could go back, / I would have clutched my tongue, / not let it pirouette into / the soft, dim spotlight of / your living room
Monastery
by Alicia Lai
Once I entered into a symbiotic relationship with a praying mantis, wings folded / at our altar of Queen Anne’s lace. There is wine on the table—father, please don’t / let the calf bleed on me.
Dark Rum & Tonic
by Molly Fisk
Sometimes what you need is a road / house, blast of laughter and warm air pouring / out the door, where the waitresses know / your name but the customers don’t
A Capitalist Back to Nature
by Robert S. King
Here is the last forest that has never / heard the crisp snap of a dollar / or a siren louder than a crow. / Here the wind does not honor / the borders of a deed.
Five by Perchik
by Simon Perchik
This dirt still mimics sweat / lies down alongside, unsure / your lips would quiet it / though the finger that is familiar / probably is yours –could be enough
A College Classroom in the Month of May
by Lowell Jaeger
Silence after I call your name this morning / earns another black mark in the roll book.
Letter to Francisco
by Mark Ramirez
I wonder what it feels like to die; to feel the rhythm of your body / fall to rest as you watch your final breath dissipate, / to speak only through dreams and the grainy film of memory.
It all began around a campfire…
Beautiful language
is meant to be heard as well as read, and in fact words were vocalized eons before they were ever committed to clay or parchment. Storytelling began around campfires. We seek prose and poetry that continue the tradition.
Contributor Spotlight:
Love and Hot Chicken
by Mary Liza Hartong
Open Contests
by Stephen Parrish, with the editors of The Lascaux Review