John Petelle – Five Days in the Park

Five Days in the Park Habit draws me back on Friday. Yellow tape blocks off my park. No admittance, no entry. Stuck in the ground, a battered sign: Lake Closed: Toxic Algae Bloom. No animals to see in this tidy place. I perch on my mountain bike, watching the stout official nervously sweating, flailing with […]

Stephanie M. Wytovich – The Survival of Fishes

The Survival of Fishes There’s a ship inside my stomach, its sails set to drown, to crash and splinter like the wood of the boats I sank, all those men evaporated into shards, into rubble, into dust.              Tell me: do Krakens eat the souls of women              who never wanted to be sirens? Because I don’t […]

John Grey – An Alien Visits an Earth Psychiatrist

An Alien Visits an Earth Psychiatrist He closes the door behind her. There goes her last remnant of a chance. It’s back into the fog of city streets and their unfriendly denizens. She has nothing in common with any of them. Nor the oak, she rests beneath. Except that its leaves are falling. And so […]

John Tumlin – Mac Watson’s Last Testament

Mac Watson’s Last Testament Recording found in a pressure suit This bottle’s almost gone, but I don’t think I’d trade it for ten sippers full of air that starve your blood unless you poke along. Your time runs out no matter what the charge, and I don’t give a damn for time as such. I’ve […]

Bonnie Wai-Lee Kwong – self portrait in vivo

                                        self portrait in vivo                                     grass                                         spills                                       into sunlight                                                                       the innermost                                                                 tongue                                                             of an orchid            splays in                         wild        repose                                                                                      water                                                                                             opens to light                                                                                what to reflect                                                                                         what to let pass                                                                      if you don’t                                                                             see                                                                      this rainbow                                                   come around                             look                                                                        from                                      the angle                                   of my eyes                                                              if                                           you                                               approach                                                               me                                                      like sunlight                                                                                  I could be […]