THE ARRANGEMENT / Allison Creighton
Allison-1-1
STILL LIFE WITH VACANCY / Ian Doumit
Spikes in the ghost field are memories
Only nothing but strangers
Save for the cleaning ladies
Even their soft fast Spanish whispers
Are just echoes, gone so soon
Stains that don’t quite shampoo out
Bedding that glows under blacklight
Gideon Bible lies in ambush
Four walls that are too thin to hold a home
The one cup coffeepot hides its head beneath its wing
Past the window the prairie stretches
Buried under farmland
Veined with freeways
The sky reflects the neon down in raindrops
Welcomes all travelers
After Party / RJ Ingram
A kid in neon flip-flops stands between two trees staring at the sun rise over a craggy coastline / He holds onto a rood that stands about an apple over him & the pair of them that is the staff & kid can’t remember what candy he had for breakfast but he sure as hell never misses the sunrise / Welcome to the next level of unyielding environments / The infinite forest meets the infinite seas & between them ships pack up & ferry the country’s elite back & forth between curtains of sapphire & foam / Regardless of your plans tonight you’re sure to scan the channels for floats & buoys bobbing in & out of consciousness / The leftover selvage from yesterday’s fancier parties sinks beneath the sandy surface of the beaches where children comb around prodding each other with sticks & metal detectors & if you don’t stop it I’m going to tell mom / Tell Mom what exactly? / That it’s only been a year & you’ve dried up? / Given into numbness from beyond the Boneville / That the grief you thought you were carrying around in your Betsy Johnsons & Kate Spade knock-offs ended up evaporating before the custom locket you made for her cremains even made it to the after party / Sadness is a gift & therefore can be swept away unfortunately but they don’t preach that from the stone pulpits you used to trace with your pretty chipped French tips / So you have to keep flipping through the deck until you land on something that looks nice / What were you expecting? / Another after party?
Draw another card | Turn to page 2
Look for another interpretation | Turn to page 3
Tuesdays / Dara Laine
I wish I had asked you
what you were thinking
when I saw you—head hung
at the edge of your bed
at one in the morning,
the night before your surgery.
Why did I avoid it?
I slinked into my room
but left the light on.
After you were gone,
we looked through your pills—
you’d taken two already that week.
Which makes sense.
It was Tuesday,
the last day you were home.
You were born on a Tuesday.
Were you supposed to take them
on an empty stomach?
I know that can’t be
why you died.
—
I wish people would stop telling me
you’re in a better place—
as if here,
with us,
wasn’t paradise.
When it was.
It was.
I wish they’d stop saying
you wouldn’t want me to be sad—
like grief was my choice
to hurt you.
Like I could choose
to stop loving
what’s gone.
When You Try to Control the Metaphor and Democracy Wins / Heather McClelland
You acquired this garden, but now fear
what lurks below, fear the subtle eyes
that lunge from the depths through
thick woody mulch. Oh, false protector.
Whose side are you on? How do you choose
what to pull? Scattered seeds dropped
like horses into the starting gate, then the jockey,
the turf, and the wood slammed open.
The horse might chomp at the bit.
Maybe she is eager, wants to win,
even with your weight on her back, the whip.
But, no. Not your way. You tried so hard to plant
a row, thin and straight. You misunderstood everything.
She does not want to win the race.
She tries with her tongue to remove
the mouth-chain. She wants to buck the pathetic.
Shimmer, and when the ignorant approach,
bite. Sometimes, the tongue is not enough.
Vacation / Lottë Mitchell Reford
We peel eggs and talk about babies. Cannot get the shells off neatly — nick the white flesh again and again.
We run naked into the sea – nereids, now, finally. The sand dries so quickly our footprints disappear before we wade out of the water. It is like we were never there.
Later, I read about the ways nonviolence is useless
and remember the time I threw a plate at a wall and
almost hit you in the face
and how sometimes in the Summer shadows would be so long they were like a run-on
sentence they were like a map like a tarot reading.
Untitled / Aileen Valca
Another couple hours
Down the road:
Peachy
Trembling
Screeching.
Forgot to close the door
Forgot to
Forgot to hear them all.
Man-God / Edytta Wojnar
he who’s given
joy & promises
exceptional children
he who lies
once twice thrice
who denies
to be afraid
when everything around him
roars & shakes
he who in torrents
steers to the left
annoyed with cautious
drivers ahead
he who provides food
bringing bags hoisted
like dumbbells
in both hands:
apples instead of berries
rib eye in lieu of fish
a bouquet of
lilies
whose hands built a house
outlined plans
& clouds
caught first drops of rain
he who doesn’t cry
doesn’t apologize
whose acts are a rivulet
of nails melting
into an iron chain
he who’s walked
roofs’ spines in storms
balanced between life & death
he who thrives on devotion
he who likes to be praised
