Shield

Tanja Bartel

If a bird visits your window sill and no one has died recently, it’s just a bird. Or the person in the window is an omen to the bird. No one can say. If hope is the thing with feathers, hopelessness is bald as an egg.

*

He throws sand at my window when we fight. One grain at a time. Ping, sting.

*

I’m afraid of the sight on the street from my window. There’s something on the glass and I don’t know if it’s on the outside or insidious. Could be my face. Streetlights have never saved anyone. Still, we walk under lights, flooded with trust.

Over My Dead Body

Brad Rose

I’m happening, now. I can’t stop myself. It’s always TV about food or food about TV. I’m employed, yes, but not gainfully. Maybe it’s better to start every conversation with a question? I’m a bomb-ass disco dancer, but I’m strictly non-confrontational. People tell me I remind them of a beginner’s trapeze mistake. Yes, my pants are on backwards, but I’m well-armed and extremely courteous. If I had a hammer, the other animals wouldn’t stand a chance. Except for the wolves. Those cowards took the 5th amendment. I’m feeling lucky as a lottery ticket, but that may be an overestimation of the DNA evidence. Ricky said that if you have the right attitude, every day is a holiday. Just think of it. To each his own. I’m going to get to the bottom of this, even if it kills me. Have you ever heard of such a thing? No, I didn’t think so. Get in the car. This is not a test.

Marvels

Carol Ciavonne

Darling, the marvels of Peru
drift on the water, none whole.
They bloom at dusk. Voices
carry across the lake.
Why not spirit?
Monarch visits daily.
Nearly fifty crows.
Nearly four o’clock.

Dream in which I imagine my mother as a paper doll

Shinjini Bhattacharjee

Once inside, I dress my mother’s
eyes from scratch—school it with

the salt of the oxen waves that un-map the
skin of the sea humming against their weight.

Meanwhile, the young tulip tree that she grew
in the backyard softens into the shape of darkness.

Outside, I hear the voice of a man who slips the
bodies of his two buried children through the fog

after his wife finishes counting their ribs, questioning their
bruises that held sufficient grace to borrow another year.

Somewhere, a hare crawls on all fours
and prepares its throat for a capable panic.

Soon, soon, the house grows old. One by one,
the calm leaves turn sleepless in our hands.

metamorphosis of man, canvas, bird and egg, hung in the gallery where everything is auctioned

Michael Cooper

we start with the bird
and the egg then move on to paint
and magritte
who speaks of the whole
of the dreg we
start with the bird and the egg
crack shell
wing arm
until they beg
as oubliette we begin
to eat we
start
with the bird and the egg
then move on to paint and magritte.

Magical Materialism

Kathryn Kopple

I’m spread out in front of the television watching Nature in high definition. There’s something heroic and tragic about the swishing lizard, the way it risks a dune, the tiny sawing tail erasing its footprints. A blur. I should really call the occultist. Instead, I’ve spent all day collecting empty bottles to string up as makeshift wind chimes—now I’ve decided to consign them all to the trash. If I had a new prescription, I could search the Yellow Pages. Instead, it too goes into the bin. It’s not as if I don’t see the problem. Surely, I mean oculist. Surely, I don’t mean, a second kind of sight is what is needed here.

New Year’s Bells

Meg Eden

The abandoned bowling alley has
one hundred and eight lanes. Unpeopled,

somewhere in the mountains, a bell
rings out the number of human vanities.

Another Name for the River

Nate Maxson

In the future we all float

In the Alaskan smoke,

I can claim to be a mercury-smith

With a hammer and fog under my coat

I stretch silver in webs underground,

Listening devices

Believe me

The river Nesia

Drips its vibrato along the milky powerline

Play It As It Lays #1

Alexis Rhone Fancher

“I try not to think about dead things and plumbing.” —Maria, Play It As It Lays.

After she hung up she packed one bag and drove to the desert.
Where’ve you been, he said.
He twisted a silver medallion on his chest so that it flashed in the sun.
Nowhere.

She was standing in the sun by the window, brushing her hair.
I need help, she said. I need help bad.

She slept and did not dream.

He looked untouched and she did not.
They mentioned everything but one thing…
She closed her eyes and concentrated on a prayer she had learned as a child.
She would do what he wanted.
She would tell him she could not wait.

The floor of the bedroom where it happened was covered with newspapers.
She had a sense the dream had ended and she had slept on.
She knew a lot of things about disaster.
He adjusted the dial but the sound remained level.
The table was a doctor’s table but not fitted with stirrups:
In a way she was relieved.

She put her bare feet on the dashboard and pressed her face
against her knees.

The late sun glazed the Pacific.
The wind burned on her face.
There would be plumbing anywhere she went.

Toda Dia, Toda Noite

Catherine Moore

for Maria Teresa Horta

The dung beetle aids the earth with its slow collection of a fecal diet. The ladybird beetle unwittingly pollenates, in fertile droppings, as it chases whiteflies. Small offerings. Unmeditated. Like a cochineal gifting red dye or silk worms secreting thread. The banal. By remnant. In bits. Like some Maria at her small Portuguese window pushing pen onto paper, waiting for her marmalade to set.

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