Category: Issue 2: Cycles
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Acoustics
Mice sing inside the walls if you let them.I had my very own Barry Manilow living right there in the cupboard. Bees remember faces, which explains summer ’97–the hum of the hive in my throat. Presently my sobbing is less mouth-shaped more “O shit— “ like a baby bird flew song first undermy front tire.I heard…
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Second Guessing
did my superhero ~ abandon ~ assignmenta slight second chance at mobilitymy spine ~ an erector set ~stepped on ~ bent in rain ~ an albino cobra ~ twists dorsallya backbiter ~ my own bloodbroken zipper ~ jams at bottomsteel lodges ~ to scatter my spine like~ drive by bullets ~ an articulated latticeI feed…
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Spokes People
FrameWe assemble in the car park at Chandler’s Cross, just past the Co-op. It’s already 10:00 but Len’s running late. Naturally, we wait. Every Wednesday and Saturday we ride fifty miles or more, sixty or so in the summer. Sometimes Len isn’t late. BrakesJamie’s sciatica, Andy’s audiology appointment, Gail’s about to become a grandmother. We’ll…
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What Matters Most
It was time. The bottle of orange hand soap, yet half-full, landed in the trash with a satisfying thud. Or, was the bottle half-empty? Patrick would have said as much. Louise could just imagine his responsive holler from the living room. “Was that the Dial Gold? It’s only half-empty! Set it back so we use…
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Gone in 100 Words
It starts with paling skin. Soon there’s just muscle, below that paler bones. He’s not dying, just turning see-through. He doesn’t know how or why, but knowing wouldn’t fix anything. The doctors have no clue, even the rabbi is stumped. Not that God’s ever done anything but sit up there. Today, he’s barely visible. A…
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Standing Vigil
Wrestle an infinite collapse of bees to your feet,Stuff Orwellian coals into your pockets, and suture Your lips to the moon. Speak nothing, and fade away. K.C. Rhae is a poet and designer living in Westminster, Colorado. He should probably do the dishes. Sometime soon.
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La Tristesse Durera Toujours
—Vincent van Gogh’s final words: the sadness lasts forever Words paint their own demiseas do Whitman’s blades of grass.Nothing appears built to lastbut suffering. This is Buddhist ideology,this world of the living,as we pass from one canvasto the next unknowable uncreationof time into uncertaintymore profound than skyor clouds. Rainfall comes and goes,and trees keep their silentvigil…
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What My Mother Knows About Beginning Again
Every yearmy mother plants the same garden: tomatoes, basil, marigoldsguarding what cannot be guarded. I ask whyshe doesn’t try something new. She laughsas if I’ve missedthe point of growing. The soil remembers, she says. I watch her kneelwhere she knelt before. Her hands press seedsinto a historyshe will never write. By July,tomatoes redden like suns.…
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Le temps, le temps
When time was my allyI could see you come and goWithout a care in the world Enjoying your journeysFrom here to thereAnd back When time was on my sideI could count minutes and secondsAnd not be scaredLooking forwardTo new itinerariesLips here, fingers thereAnd back When time was an adjustable variableI would feel its realityAnd still…
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Luteal
Yesterday, I asked a boy what we were. Today, he replied: “I think we are friends.” I cried. Not the pretty, single-tear kind. The silent, hunched on my bed, facing the wall, headphones-on-so-I-wouldn’t-have-to-explain-to-my-roomies-that-I-was-crying-over-a-boy kind. A patch of tears darkened my pillowcase. Last month, at this same time, it was the waffles. The waffle man at…
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