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.
CAROLINE M. MAR
That's a reconciliation that I'm often grappling with, which is about positionality. What am I responsible for? What's coming up for me; who am I in all of this? How can I be my authentic self and also how do I maybe take some responsibility?
NATHANIEL PERRY
Words can contain their opposite, / pleasure at once a freedom and a ploy— / a garden something bound and original / where anything, but certain things, should thrive; / the difference between loving-kindness and loving / like the vowel shift from olive to alive.
ELIZABETH HAZEN
Sometimes I dream of gardens— // that same dirt they kick from their cleats could feed us, / grow something to sustain us. But it’s winter. // The ground is cold, and I dare not leave this room; / I want to want to fix this—to love them // after all—but in here I am safe.
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