by Ben Stoll

art by Camille Corot, 1865

Eighty dollars.
To a child: a King’s ransom.

I see the price tag dangle from hemp string,
the glass figures cut the sunlight
and slice it across the checkerboard.

They look like diamonds however,
strong enough to cut my teeth on.
With no one looking I take a pawn

and bite.

I collect my broken teeth
and tumble them in the sand by the stream.

8 years old, cuticles rubbed raw and bleeding,

by Daniel Felsenthal

art by Alfred Stevens, 1888

Morning dreams
Of a swollen hour
What’d you smoke,
Who’d you do?
Time as a unit of distance,
In which it is
In so many ways, used.
Walk cul-de-sacs
Just to stay still, energetically:

Bar with light slatted
Through door
Sun hiding behind
So much blue
Bed risen with sound:

Last night’s snack
Is still being enjoyed
Somewhere
In your body.

by Jae Eason

How many times have I prayed in wooden pews &
the echo of my voice answered?

They say: drink this,
                           eat this

and the enzymes in my stomach learn how to break
down Jesus’ blood & Jesus’ body and if you recite
your dinnertime prayers, God will give you food and
let you eat it.

And you will pray & we will continue to pray.

Hail Mary, full of grace
you will recite these words – they’ll web inside your
throat until the Book has stifled you.

by Emily Townsend

The sky is rarely clear during spring
in Willamette Valley, and tonight
there is a star coruscating

through the cloudless canvas, as if to say,
I am still here, please don’t forget I exist
Earlier, daffodils were drunk with rain.

I am your backpack as you fall
asleep. I watch this asterism burn
and dim like a stagnant plane, fixated
yet moving as our planet orbits. I assume

this is the only thing alive in the dark.
You snore loud enough to wake up
the horizon,

by Genevieve Creedon

Paring knife meets plastic meets
index finger amid kitchen preparations
for tomorrow’s chicken pasta salad lunch:

red dyes soft fabric in dim lights
during efforts to contain the stain,
blood meets counter meets

tongue and then water, washing it away.
But blood washes better than brooding
erupting in tomorrow’s chicken pasta salad lunch:

recollection, rising, unleashed,
in the corner of the living room,
a wandering eye meets cardboard meets

boxed remnants of a long past attempt
to learn to draw—the penciled contours
of life,