On the same side
turn a car
into a parallelogram,
an oft-read Bible,
a shelf of books
with a few
missing, a man
sitting and a woman
standing. Her hand
is on his shoulder.
His head lolls forward.
Her feet are anxious.
Kevin C. Stewart is the author of The Way Things Always Happen Here, a collection of stories, and Margot, winner of the Texas Review Novella Prize. He teaches at Carroll College and lives in Helena, Montana.
PETER FILKINS
All night long / it bucked and surged / past the window // and my breath / fogging the glass, / a yellow moon // headlamping / through mist, / the tunnel of sleep, // towns racing past. // Down at the crossroads, / warning in the bell, / beams lowering // on traffic before / the whomp of air
JEN JABAILY-BLACKBURN
What do I know / about us? One of us / was called Velvel, / little wolf. One of us / raised horses. Someone / was in grain. Six sisters / threw potatoes across / a river in Pennsylvania. / Once at a fair, I met / a horse performing / simple equations / with large dice. / Sure, it was a trick, / but being charmed / costs so little.
G. C. WALDREP
I am listening to the slickened sound of the new / wind. It is a true thing. Or, it is true in its falseness. / It is the stuff against which matter’s music breaks. / Mural of the natural, a complicity epic. / The shoals, not quite distant enough to unhear— / Not at all like a war. Or, like a war, in passage, / a friction of consequence.
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