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“Bartering: Day after Diagnosis” by Cassie Garison
I will give you my horns, hooked& taurean. I will give you my crown,woven from rose-thorns and olivebranch, copper wire & shardsof glass. I have been collectingshells: fastening them togetherwith scraps of twine, wind them tightaround my neck. They drag me deepbeneath a rabid sea. Other days:I press each conch into my skinlet it sting like iron at the hipof a cow. -
“Come Next Spring” by Paul Bamberger
“the epochal consciousness has turned a somersault in the void”Karl Jaspersfrom: Man in Modern Timescome next spring this category will swing its gate closedyes yes we’re readybut who are they these poetswe have no ideacould they be the wicked little joke we never quite understood but laughed at anywaywe don’t believe somisdemeanors unallotted time and spacemore than thatmuch morea fight to the draw perhapsthat would be too sadcould they be a metaphor lost to an empty conclusiontoo far afieldwhy then don’t we just say they are mercy screaming down a hill after waking the bonesthe scavenging moon in chaseyou might be onto something hereand do they come back oftenyes come in spring so we are toldlooking for whatwho knowsi have heard they suffer bad mood swingswe’ll see*Paul Bamberger received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Massachusetts Writing Program.
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“The Bell” by Martin Jago
It’s coming back, the black brick of despairthey made you dive for, early September,a monument today, stacked plastic chairsin blazing orange glory. Dust remembersthe chorus of the great assembly hall,and matron’s kindness hanging by a hingebeneath the gralloch of its flattened walls.Remember the smell of chlorine on your skin,the way you used lick it, smell your hand?The piano opens in a toothless yawnand with the slow sweep of a mop the sandsnakes past, -
Excerpt from Adame by Rosalind Palermo Stevenson
What I like about living with Nandi is that she commands so little space, her presence is airy, she resides here lightly, and then of course she is always changing, from one mood to the next, each with its own distinct physical form. When I write, Nandi goes off by herself to swim in the ocean. I form the words on the page. I write myself page after page, while my companion swims with only her head visible, bobbing above the waves. Sometimes, when I am frustrated with my progress, I throw the pages against the wall. I think sky and ocean.
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“The Foghorn” by Rosalind Palermo Stevenson
1. sound of the foghorn and the ocean
_________________loud, persistent, repeating
2. view of the ocean from the cliff
3. closeup, waves over rocks
4. wind, reeds, water
5. ocean, front to side
6. ocean, front to other side
7. ocean
8. waves to shoreThe dream is true. All dreams are true.
_________________________(Antonin Artaud)9. long shot over rocks
___________first appearance of the younger woman
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“Improvised Compost” by Anastasia Stelse
All summer we tended tomatoes: stakedstalks as verdant leaves unfurled, veinsspreading into the fingertips of new growth.We watered, fertilized, filled plots with lovetokens and improvised compost—crushedeggshells, snippets of hair, orange peels.When the first leaf wallpapered itselfyellow, we plucked it. Washed our hands.But leaves kept turning, curling. We snippedbranches. I didn’t think I’d lose the plant.*Anastasia Stelse is a native of southeastern Wisconsin,
