James MillerLeo, For Alice ColtraneI sample four spears of roasted asparagus. Crunched tips, rescuedfrom the boil. Wurlitzer rides up, late for dinner. She says: water my horses, then wash your hands. She says, be not afraidof simplicity! Dumps her sack of everythingon the carpet. The kids dive in like seals. I pick out a few […]
David P. MillerAngelic GhazalBrethren, shrug your shoulders, yawn. The killed were “no angels.”Who’ll hose the blood away? Our high-fivin’ bro angels. Prez gotta have a pic clutching Prez Bible upside down.Prepare ye the tear-gas way, arch-roboangels. One body, brown, four hours sheeted silent in the street.Flatlined on the double yellow, feed for crow angels. Very […]
David P. Miller A Shroud of Synonyms Lay back the darkness for a salesman who could charm everything but the shadows —Edward Hirsch A ninety-year-old poet interjects: he’s never seen it worse than now and this is a hell of a way to go out. The rest of us gathered go silent. Melancholia, dark spleen. […]
David P. MillerGo Back The pale people, they who host plague froma world across the ocean, will not gointo the rivers to wash themselves. They camefrom a ship with a flower’s name. Backin their own land, do flowers stink so? I ask you,how many times must we show them where to bathe? The strangers insist […]
Margo Taft SteverBomb Shelter Explosion Report Sputnik circled the earth; people imagined atomic bombs. Russiansblasted Yuri Gagarin into the cosmos—the space race the new now.Soviets placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. Police Report, November 11, 1967: Explosion occurredin underground bomb shelter, 300 yards north of mainresidence, thirty feet east of garage. Fuse box found nearvictim’s left […]
Christopher Braciszewski Timelessness Forever never felt like much Until we wept for a hand to hold Lonely smoldering cauldron This life is embolden with hypocrisy Shouting loudly for justice in a small room Timelessness, effortless, and beguiled Soft eyes, soft hands, soft lips Hard times not fixed We miss the universal you We miss the […]
Patricia Carragon Moonlight Serenade Charlie was in bed, tubes attached to his body, listened to cartoons on a nineteen-inch screen, thought of Sophia, his “Belle of Flatbush.” When la luna was full, Charlie used to sing “Moonlight Serenade” outside Sophia’s gate. They’d slow-dance to Glenn Miller’s rendition. He’d relax his rhythm, hold Sophia closer, recall […]
Stephen Gibson For a Girl Who Died in the 1918 Influenza Pandemic To get to Calvary from the Bronx, I’d take the el to Manhattan, then the Queens line to the cemetery where I cut grass in the oldest section every day where there were photographs in headstones, ovals like ostrich eggs with pictures, with […]
Stephen Gibson A Brief History at Cotton Mather’s Tomb in Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in Boston From Salem, not his grave in this cemetery, you could almost hear the witches nearby in Danvers village being hanged from trees— nothing they could say would convince a jury they weren’t screwing sleeping men as succubi— we visited […]
David P. Miller The End of That a golden shovel, from Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” And both you and I may end before we say “Bind our shaken hearts to this whole staring disaster.” Shroud yourself, my personal god. Blanch for what your deep devoted have torched for your nostrils. I strip away […]