1 You find Tina outside with cigarette breath. She challenges you to a winter foot race out to the sledding hill and back and you accept the air thin but prickly like thistles and thorns by the time you have to jump the fence your shoes and ankles are soaked if you lose she’ll give … Continue reading
Tag Archives: literary
The Luncheon — James Doyle
They set a table out on the Alps just for us. “This is a neutral country,” the waiter said, “you can have anything you want.” The mountains were very proud of their muscles, flexed them every chance they got. They would rub away any whiff from the rest of the world if it tried to … Continue reading
Civitate Dei — William Spencer
I look around for a frame free of artifice. At best I get cigar smoke blown through a harmonica in C. Behind my head is the lowest quality conversation I’ve ever heard. Earlier, locals pointed weapons at me from porches as I walked by. They informed me that I wasn’t from this neighborhood. If I’m … Continue reading
Cosmogony — William Spencer
The influence of Humbaba revives you and compels you to destroy art. The influence of Enlil suggests that you never die. Climb the mountains and whisper into their ears. Don’t interrupt. Fire rises up to repair with the empyrean as you try and fail to go to the river a second time. As you try … Continue reading
Flowers for Moloch — Christopher Barnes
The astonishing stuff was summer clouds, Twirling a trice, Touch-and-go, dispensed with, smashed. But The Comforter of prevalent banks Sabbaths through the ages, Overdue for embezzlement Or somersaulted in deluge To a credulous pocket in ground. Continue reading
Aging — Ann Niedringhaus
I close my fingers, try to grasp water. The tighter I clench, the faster it runs away. The April 15, 2007, issue of The New York Times carried a headline: Aging: Disease or Business Opportunity? I have long read obituaries. They change as I grow older. Now I take inordinate comfort in those for the … Continue reading
Glum — Michael Milburn
You know those vanished cars forgotten about until one spring day an anonymous tip sends the cops out to a newly thawed local lake to winch the wreck streaming to the surface? That, I’m told, is what it’s like to get a smile out of me, my expression a wintry landscape, manner stiff as a … Continue reading
Pavlov’s Dog — William Miller
What happened to the poor beast? Did he slowly starve to death, still barking at bells that never brought a dish of food? Or did they feed him just enough to keep him alive, prove the experiment worked again and again? Maybe he escaped. There were city streets, garbage cans to eat from, until he … Continue reading
a handbook to dying on a 3 mile island — Brendan Moore
I’m in love with a Nuclear Reactor— Did I tell you? At least he will hold me With nuclear arms, And our kisses will be Plutonic— Clean even in waste. So when I am in love, It seems I’m radioactive— When I make love, I’m in half-life decay— A body deorbiting a red reactor, Which … Continue reading
Unforeseen Trouble with Safety Goggles — Lauren Coe
In Biology class we stared at those swollen balloon cells. Pinched under glass all bled out, a dozen little fossils. Flat nuclei stretched like canvas, all the sad parts stuck on there labeled Red Blood Cell #3. They made me think of you. Remember when I cut my finger on the paring knife, my thumb … Continue reading
Coe Review 