HT Harrison – Through-Lines
Through-Lines Inside the wheelbarrow in the forest, I’m learning to spell the planet’s true names, not from origin or desire, but kindling: barrow crunching across fallen spines of pine. Grandmother tossing twigs into the hold. Me birdlike, nesting, reciting the letters s-a-l-a-m-a-n-d— when the event escapes and I fly toward my mother’s face in the […]
Christopher Shipman – Image is to Word as Brick is to Murder
Image is to Word as Brick is to Murder Brick. Finally, this morning, without thought you jot down the word on a used envelope. Quick scribble over the place where the paper was torn—the fold flared into pointed teeth. Harmless as the offer inside to consolidate debt. Harmless as you deciding the word itself is […]
Ceridwen Hall – The Field (a Missive with Bluff Checks)
The Field (a Missive with Bluff Checks) “You can’t write home from the field.” Vera Atkins, SOE intelligence officer Dear friend, I love more cautiously than I would like. If we still had recess—do you remember how the pines dropped sap in our hair?—it would be easier to return after vanishing. But sometimes I want […]
Michael Pearce – My Father Is a Horse That Tells the Truth
My Father Is a Horse That Tells the Truth 1. The part he liked to tell was about the horses: how you could hear the bubbling thunder of their approach in the moonlit night, how the pointed white hoods and draping cloaks floated over their snort and canter, the fog of each […]
Joseph Byrd – Getting my oil changed
Getting my oil changed and Jeremiah speaks kind he knows motors his assessments include what’s dirty I am not my car I forget to say the oil has come and engines can stutter and I, too, have been guided over holes I want to tell him I have found a thing beneath Jeremiah speaks quick […]
