Angela Sucich – The Phoenix Ignores Our Expiration Date
The Phoenix Ignores Our Expiration Date Somewhere up high the solar bird builds her nest with twigs of cinnamon, kindling to burn the past—all five-hundred years of it. Myths say she has outlived nine ravens, though like other storied things is remembered most for her perishing: the blazing finale and the smoke-clearing encore of her […]
Catherine Klatzker – Tectonic Shift
Tectonic Shift Downy, soft, fragile newborn skull, a dandelion waving on its slender stem. No support, poor support. Hold her head, they caution, cradle her neck they command. Her heartbeat is visible through her fontanel, the top of her head— should that be so pronounced? Her cranial sutures stand out when she cries, red faced, […]
Ann Weil – Guernica II
Guernica II We met in Paris, 1957, long after the wars. He was a wiry man with jet black eyes and a bombastic magnetism that gave me shivers. He asked to paint me, and back then I would do anything for a few francs. I knew the dangers— all confirmed on a hundred canvases scattered […]
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 […]
