Patricia Smith – Oral Exam
Oral Exam He soft-circles his cave of mouth, pop prickle of beard there, threads you in, plays underside raw with tubed tongue, sucks febrile current from your slitted eye. A violence brusquely swaps toes and hairline, sapped muscle slant- rhymes my weather. Nervy knot, potentate of keen collapse, all and every is linked to your […]
Karen Llagas – Gratitude Journal
Gratitude Journal I flinch a little as I reach for it, this practice we do each night in bed, our pillow talk these days, when sending ourselves off to sleep needs less effort than late night sex. Does this flinch expose how little regard I have for joy? Is this why I clasp our one- […]
Candace Pearson – Invisible
Invisible I come from the body of no body A body that declines to see itself in the mirror understands self-protection Fade is to fading is to faded I am fluid margins shifting alliances Solid matter an illusion a pencil sketch that erases itself outlines drawn in breath or ghost ink * I come […]
Gregory W. Randall – Alba
Alba Now the showerhead sprays my chest with that first blast of cold water sitting in pipes, now too hot, now just right and now I turn my body in this small space between your shower chair and aboriginal chieftain, elephant seal, mountain gorilla thumping his chest to watch your body emerge out of stone— […]
Christopher Buckley – Know-nothing
Know-nothing. . . y entre los que menos sabian yo siempre supe un poco menos —Neruda Among those who knew what they were talking about, I invariably knew less . . . for years I was a dangerous young man . . . . In college, I put in the […]
