Here are the steps leading down to the lake
choked with water hyacinths crowding
out the lilies, and algae thick as serum.
By: ALISON PRINE
The opposite of losing you
was watching you across the purple light
of the dance floor in the local gay bar
while the salt trucks dragged through the streets.
by JAMES HOCH
[Field Manual]
Sunday, there she goes again, toddling
out the door, off the back deck, tumbling
in her church dress, a field of hand-
painted green stems and yellow flowers,
In a dark, wood-paneled studio, I’ve sat
for three full days, an eremite with neither
cup nor cause. As hours accumulate,
I’m the kind of guy who when there’s a problem, I like to get on it. I don’t like the problem to get me, I like to get it. When there’s a problem, I face it—I don’t let it faze me. You could say I like to faze it. I like to face my problems and take care of them, I don’t let them take care of me.
By MIK AWAKE
Became a skinhead
a year after he moved from
Bumblefucktucky.
Hit me with his cast.
Hurt people hurt people
often with their hurt parts.
Who broke his arm?
His step-dad step on him?
They was poor, but they was white.
Not a place to take flight but where downy-skinned
children can sometimes heal like fallen sparrows
in a shoe box, a place I found myself at nine,
concussed. The child in the rail-rimmed bed
By ALBERTO DE LACERDA
Translated by SCOTT LAUGHLIN
The soft whisper of a river
Mingling slowly
With another river: a force
Surging around us
The profound peace
Of this natural rhythm
And I remember the first slap that followed the slur, how soft
were the fingertips, so slick with oil and sweat the burning mark
seemed to reassure both ‘Know your place’ and ‘This, too, shall pass.’
A flock of Aratinga nenday in the park today—
Green parakeets, so exactly the color of the grass
The grass itself seemed to shriek.
And all at once fly away.
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