min words | max heart
Jeanie Tomasko
un-
unalone unaloof unaloft undone
(that day I bought waxed linen at a craft shop I raveled
together a string for you which seems the right word
because un-
ravel is to un-make or un-do
and I tied it on your arm so we wouldn’t)
as in: not without, as in (you)
Jeanie Tomasko
So I go to this reading down at the bookstore and afterwards meet a friend of a friend. She’s unlocking her bike and I notice a shiny decal on the crossbar half under a long sticker. Holy, I say. It’s the green Virgin of Guadalupe, #4 out of 10. I have Her too, along with #s 2, 5, and 9. She wants more, she says. She got this one in a gumball machine in the Sauk City Mexican grocery. That’s where I’ve been going for my Virgins, but it’s too late, things have changed up a bit. And I tell her about the conversion to Minions and Skulls and Tattoos of Biker Chicks. She prefers Virgins, I can tell, as Our Lady shines, there on her crossbar, sparkling. Our Lady. Our Lady of State Street. Our Lady of Biker Chicks. Our Lady, bless her ride home.
Jessy Randall
Philip Kobylarz
The rest being simplification, a pruning
of the citronnier branches, crusts
from bread left for pigeons, thread
and needle unattached. Men in the street
smile to each other; coins, sad faces of,
making music in their pockets.
Halvard Johnson
Wandering out there among the bosons
and fermions, kicking back while others stretched out
before us, seeking to amuse us, to show us
the errors of our ways. Particulations
devoutly to be wished.
James Cervantes
Witness a hopeful face when the cancer
has been located. Surrounded, cancer appears
in a window of every other house.
The only victory is to deprive it of a body.
Think of ash trees in a front yard,
budding before their last leaves drop.
Likewise, there is no body, no thought
missing from a chain of thoughts.
A beginning ends what an end begins.
James Cervantes
He holds the camera-phone at arm’s length to take the selfie.
A breeze kicks up, the leaves turn, and the air is crystal clear.
He holds the self at arm’s length and the distance grows.
A new breeze twirls a leaf around the self, a leaf around the air.
