Frank Paino – Nesyamun

Nesyamun Priest and Scribe of the Karnak Temple (Mummified remains displayed in Leeds City Museum, England) Forty layers               of incensed linen stripped               in the slow seduction               of science. Cumin, myrrh,               oils of cedar and cinnamon               whose aromatics swirl               like the potent scent of burnt               offerings. Here, beneath               […]

Bruce Bond – Lunette 4

Lunette 4 Even the dead feel incomplete and drift        through the garden floor like a feeling of displacement or the scent of rain.        You know that smell, the way a body knows to end the dream and drink. It knows itself        as mostly water and therefore passing through. The breath of millions polishes the wall […]

Jan Beatty – California

California Around here, trees are hats, little bowlers, van gogh lids of blown divi trees that lean sideways for the better view— toppers, kangols, pork pies, wig hats. I woke to the racket hailstorm: little funnels of green at the edge of the hillside—jutting out over the sea—the lives of people closeted inside—who are they? […]

Morrow Dowdle – The Gir- That Lost Its L

The Gir- That Lost Its L It didn’t happen all at once, but in chunks. The L’s first cut the parents scissoring the long hair. The Gir- started to be mistaken. The face not enough to carry its sex. No wonder the Gir- started to hate it—the hair. The face. The body with its brown […]

Molly Fisk – Even Rivers

Even Rivers It isn’t wanting to die it’s not even not wanting to keep living, it’s some other kind of absenteeism my spirit dreams about but they get all tangled up in those labyrinthine trails through my neocortex and give me a headache. What I want is no more burden, less exhaustion, some kind of […]