I This boy is about to decant the cleanser into the pruney mouthfold of a gerbil. He looks like the spiked onset of a yawn, making bantam contortions, enduring the faint torque of unwatchable cable. His shelf contains the brazen, the nautical objects: pronouns, pendants. Portrait of a rocking chair. Ambiguous taxidermy: damp. A wounded bird and mouse’s ear, whittled, glued into a baseball glove. … Continue reading Boy In Three Parts by Jacob Kahn

[the very very blue] i told my son the very very blue is a day with a want so great it removes the pleasure of accomplishing the task of getting dressed without falling down and getting dressed without falling down is the first goal of all people but when you see that sky is even more so there is a clamp that opens your heart … Continue reading Two Poems by Darren C. Demaree

IV I wasn’t ready for two-a-days. That’s a practice in the morning and another practice in the afternoon with a break in the middle to eat lunch and avoid the sun. Two-a-days started two weeks before and lasted until the school year started. The go-getters on the team trained over the summer, lifted weights and ran. I ate mint chocolate chip ice cream and jerked … Continue reading SLAB IV / V / VI by Big Bruiser Dope Boy

If you were to mark iniquities, who, O Lord, shall stand? For with you is forgiveness; and because of your law, I stand by you. My soul has stood by your word, and your inexpert moves on the dance floor, at dawn. Who cares about the future? Why choose me out of the eye, ear, and mouth candy of multiplicity? I just do not understand. … Continue reading Vow by Virginia Konchan

When everyone else was growing new wings, fangs and ways of maiming, I craved the sensation of disappearing. We spent our days in the lacquered surface of pools, as they dip against the decks and the decks bend into wet grass, iteratively and unnaturally. It was so achingly warm, heat pooling and draining across the desert.   We were 12 at the time and Phoenix, … Continue reading Forfeiture by Saritha