Issue 13 Poetry

after Jason Molina “Ain’t no end to the sands I been trying to cross.”   After the set, the singer settles a pot of black beans to boil, then he…

Miles away, a teen with a mouth full of fire ants devours children and no one stops him, not until the McDonald’s parking lot is an ocean of bones. A…

From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. Justice Harry Blackmun, United States Supreme Court, February 22, 1994. Maybe no one can save you…

because we were beautiful in ways that shocked; in ways that raised dust. ruffled water. drew rage from other boys. and stones and sticks and fire from men of this…

half the stars live within you, somewhere between the throat and stomach. you are gilded from the inside like flashlights under a sheet. we read the hands we were given…

Because we live in this side of the world where everything we touch dies And everything that touches us survives us with our own ghosts Because you’re little deities craving…

Poem inspired by: This poem was inspired by the following paintings by Monet: https://www.wikiart.org/en/claude-monet/camille-monet-on-her-deathbed. & https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.61379.html. Header photograph © William C. Crawford.

Header photograph © Vicki Miko.

for Rabbie Burns and our best-laid schemes After pulling autumn’s mums from their pots and tucking the gardens in to sleep beneath winter bedding of decorative hay, I bring to…

for the pears that escaped hail and those that did not, their blackened malformed shapes oddly compelling on the boughs for half a day of sun rending a fortnight of…