Poetry

diagnosis

By Dina Cox
Limned with hoar frost / an alien geography / speeds past car windows, /   / a lingering half-moon / fades into the white-blue /   / sky; this is the day...

shown on this map:

By Bren Simmers
all the things we let in / to the soft tissue of our bodies— / car alarms, pesticides, oxygen. / Some chosen; some forced: / nicotine, asbestos.     Latitude of / learned habits...

present temperature

By Anna Swanson
1. FIVE DEGREES / Somewhere a man with expensive eyeglasses / parses the smell of water / from a shelf of small clear tubes. / He is precise and the perfume /...

the ghostline

By Robert Gore
Imagine a big man, the kind you find / in the district of the upper hand /   / and you’ll know my father. You’ve met him / on the ghostline, walking...

the poet

By Steve McOrmond
The poet, who I have it on authority / enjoys tequila reposado and group sex, /   / ought to write more interesting poems. / Too many trees, and he no swinger...

subliming

By Charlene Diehl
to wake with perfect awareness of muscle, houses all in a row, questions sprinkled amongst the chairs. look back, little arrow, then step out, cross in full curiosity. the horizon is a...

xxxx

By Edward Gates
I’m too old / and empty /   / for kettles / that run dry /   / hips sore / legs stiff /   / I’ll build / one bracket /...

circuit city

By Tim Keane
I’m part of a quick waiting line in Circuit City / A doe-eye register-girl asks me for my Visa. / Words are the only instalment plan the heavens / left me. I...

changing channels

By Leanne Averbach
This summer is a mild racket. Like legions / of crickets rubbing statistics from their tiny wings /   / Twenty-four-hour news seeps through mesh / into oversweet air, wanting not to...