Anna Elkins – The Poet Enters The Architect’s Catacombs
The Poet Enters The Architect’s Catacombs Somewhere beneath the former Rue d’Enfer, Paris at a depth of 12 to 13 fathoms,[1] it’s core-quiet down here pieces of stone lifted by hand now lift the earth up from within herself, held with mortar of bones The memory of excavations is almost fragrant The ceiling above me once […]
Christine Butterworth-McDermott – Recovery like Budesonide
Recovery like Budesonide I. Lilies, lilium, like valium, blur the senses He gave them in bouquets, pink stargazing blooms, the hems of the petals undulating as he held them out to me. Only later did I discover his wife wore no. 19, and that I was just another thing to bury in flowers. II. Now […]
Chad Foret – Pilgrim Condition
Pilgrim Condition All I needed was a rain animal, one that wouldn’t disappear until I begged or burned enough to learn that flesh is made for vanishing our fever teeth. When the surf was asleep, I hunted coquinas & never told anyone I needed them, my lies maybe even lovely. What I mean is everything […]
Bruce Bond – Willow
Willow As a boy, I gazed at the painting of a mountain, and although it did not move, I moved. I touched the diamonds of untouched canvas, extremities of blue in the long unruly hair of the willow where it bathed. It was a portrait of one man’s life alone as a mountain. I love […]
Bruce Weigl – Out Here
Out Here What do you want out here, I hear the night ask when I step out for something I can’t name but let’s call cool air. Then the night showed me faces in places I choose not to remember in spite of medication and mental health guidance. Some doors I keep closed for everyone’s […]
