by David Lehman
go but I feel bottomless and I know he means
well though I don’t believe
and I feel myself shaking
my head no when he means let go his hand.
from Painted Bride Quarterly
KIKI PETROSINO
* * *
Story Problem
Suppose: a Device for measuring subdural space.
Let your Device be audible in all nightmares.
Suppose: all nightmares stick to the nerves & veins.
All veins get injured. Let that be true.
It’s a great honor to get injured in a nightmare.
The honor is: you can activate your Skeleton-Gear.
Let X equal the force of your Skeleton-Gear striking a Life Token.
Let M equal the length of one nightmare.
Now multiply your Devices.
The shearing pain in your head comes from linear force.
You must have filled your head with Life Tokens.
Or: you’ve kicked a headful of Tokens with linear force.
Try to locate your Life Token without touching it.
Try to release your Life Token without locating it.
Then press ESC to affix your nightmare to a plane.
Your Device will jangle when it’s ready to start affixing.
Let your nightmare expand along the inside of your Skeleton-Gear.
It’s true that some nightmares have flags.
Indicate your readiness by smashing a handful of turf.
Collect: the Feelings Token.
Collect: the Flag Token.
You can step right out at any time.
from The Baffler
D. A. POWELL
* * *
See You Later.
The virus, your gentleman caller, pays his vulgar respects. We’ll work from a composite sketch. Send out a dragnet.
The thing is, those creatures can hide. Oviparous inside your ear canal they hatch in your cochlea spiral & spiral.
How did he get inside? Jimmy, oh Jimmy, oh Jimmy Mack, why don’t you cut the lock. Somebody’s mocking me.
He’s like yesterday’s newspaper: Sure you’d pick him up in a bathroom. But you already know his type.
Hit the lights. Now who’s at the door? It could be anybody. Let’s call him Jimmy now for continuity’s sake.
Jimmy’s not going to give us his specimen without we got a warrant. You’re going to have to catch him in the act.
from The Iowa Review
ROGER REEVES
* * *
The Field Museum
It is customary to hold the dead in your mouth
Next to the other dead and their failing trophies:
Quetzal, starthroat, nightjar, grebe, and artic loon:
This ash for my daughter’s tongue, I give without
Sackcloth or sugar: the museum closing,
The whale falling from heaven due
Upon our heads at any time: our haloes already
Flat as plates and broken about our ankles:
How often can you send a child to meet a ghost
At the river before the child comes back speaking
As the river, speaking as the pedal-less red
Bicycles half-buried in its bank, speaking bolt oil
Spilling down the legs of a thrice-trussed bridge
Just after a train lurches toward a coast covered in smog:
The river must be thick with this type of body:
A daughter bearing bird names on her lips, cutting
Her ankles on cans that resemble her mother’s tongue.
from The Cincinnati Review
DONALD REVELL
* * *
To Shakespeare
He made a statue of the east wind
Reconciled never too late, in
Silhouette, never too late as these
First days of March turn backward,
Facing the full of winter in
Enduring love, full jollity
Of winter’s face to reconcilement,
In silhouette.
He did not forget
Who lost his life to remember it.
Step down. Do not be proud.
There is a double heart behind
The breast bone. Bare it. Beat it.
Begin to eat it in full view,
Who loves you every inch of the wind.
First days of March, lords of jollity.
from The Literary Review
PATRICK ROSAL
* * *
You Cannot Go to the God You Love with Your Two Legs
And because you’re not an antelope or a dog
you think you can’t drop your other two limbs down
and charge toward the Eternal Heart. But
those are your legs too, the ones that have hauled
your strangest body through a city of millions
in less than a day, at its own pace, in its own pain,
and because you cannot make the pace of the one whom you love
your own, and because you cannot make the pain of the one you love
your own pain, your separate aches must meet somewhere
poised in the heaven between your bodies
—skylines turned on their sides—reminders
of what once was, what every man and woman
must build upon, build from, the body, the miserable,
weeping body, the deep bony awkwardness of love
in the bed. If you’ve kissed bricks in secret
or fallen asleep where there was no bed or spent time
lighting a fire, then you know the beginning of love
and maybe you know the end of it too,
and maybe you know the far ends, the doors, where
loved ones enter to check on you. It’s not someone else speaking
when you hear I love you. It’s only the nighttime
pouring into the breast’s day. Sunset, love. The thousand
exits. The thousand ways to know your elbow
from your ass. A simple dozen troubled hunters
laying all their guns down, that one day
they may be among the first to step
into your devastated rooms
and say Enough now, enough.
from Gulf Coast
MARY RUEFLE
* * *
Saga
Everything that ever happened to me
is just hanging—crushed
and sparkling—in the air,
waiting to happen to you.
Everything that ever happened to me
happened to somebody else first.
I would give you an example
but they are all invisible.
Or off gallivanting around the globe.
Not here when I need them
now that I need them
if I ever did which I doubt.
Being particular has its problems.
In particular there is a rift through everything.
There is a rift running the length of Iceland
and so a rift runs through every family
and between families as a feud.
It’s called a saga. Rifts and sagas
fill the air, and beautiful old women
sing of them, so the air is filled with
music and the smell of berries and apples
and shouting when a gun goes off
and crying in closed rooms.
Faces, who needs them?
Eating the blood of oranges
I in my alcove could use one.
Abbas and ammas!
come out of your huts, travel
halfway around the world,
inspect my secret bank account of joy!
My face is a jar of honey
you can look through,
you can see everything
is muted, so terribly muted,
who could ever speak of it,
sealed and held up for all?
fr
om Court Green
JON SANDS
* * *
Decoded
You / I
take / nurture
my / your
bag / blood
and / and
pour / fill
its / your
contents / emptiness
on / from
the / the
sidewalk / sky
If / When
I / I
wear / undress
my / your
hoodie / skin
it / it
is not / is
in / from
danger / safety
it / it
is not / is
in / from
solidarity / alienation
it / it
is / is not
showmanship / reality
The / A
Interviewer / God
asked / answered
if / when
I / I
studied / neglected
how / why
Buddy Holly / Little Richard
disarmed / provoked
all / one
black / white
audiences / emptiness
My / Your
primary / final
album / silence
in / on
middle / infinite
school / repeat
was / is
Warren G’s / Kenny G’s
Regulators / lawlessness
“If / When
I / you
had / lose
a / the
son / moon
he’d / it
look / blinds
like / unlike
Trayvon” / anything
Our / Your
children / ancestors
will / won’t
be / be
responsible / forgiven
for / despite
the / any
debts / surplus
we / you
have not / have
paid / assumed
in / from
blood / myths
The / A
white / black
girl / boy
on / in
stage / reality
said / listened
she / he
prayed / knew
Trayvon / Trayvon
reached / left
for / despite
the / a
gun / prayer
from Rattle
STEVE SCAFIDI
* * *
Thank You Lord for the Dark Ablaze
For the deer gut busted open splayed
on the gravel margin of the highway
to remind me and to horrify which are
the same when death comes to say
anything for dying is a song the body
is learning so thank you lord for this
enduring whir of days we ride the way
a chisel carves down deep as it glides
for being is a lathe and we are the turning
curving shape of what I come to praise
so thank you Lord for the edge of light
when the day is honed and all is bright
behind the eyes just before waking for
dream is a fire we are the lake of—
dream is the spire we are the church
of—and the days turn so fast meaning
rattles hard and nearly breaks off—so
thank you lord for what arrives today
crashing down without a warning like
a pick-up truck on the deer this morning
or the morning light lashing me while
the sun flickers churning through the trees
like a wheel splashing rays on the redbud
dappling this holy thing I stand beneath
and I stand beneath and that is all, for
green is the mind of the spring returning
and dying a song the body is learning
which I will not sing or step to although
every day—oh—that is exactly what I do.
from ABZ Poetry Magazine
FREDERICK SEIDEL
* * *
To Philip Roth, for His Eightieth
I’m Mussolini,
And the woman spread out on my enormous Duce desk looks teeny.
The desk becomes an altar, sacred.
The woman’s naked.
I call the woman teeny only because I need the rhyme.
The shock of naked looks huge on top of a desktop and the slime.
Duce! Duce! Duce! is what girls get wet with.
This one’s perhaps the wettest one’s ever met with.
Mussolini often did this,
Boots on, on the desk he worked at.
I’m sitting in my desk chair staring at IT and Oh she likes that.
She likes me staring at her box office.
Isn’t everything theater? That’s what’s real.
I’ve got the face of an anteater
That sticks out like a penis to eat a meal.
I’m a chinless, cheater, wife-beater attending the theater.
It has to be someone else’s wife.
Of course!
I live alone with my life.
One divorce for me was enough divorce.
I think of the late Joe Fox and his notion
That he couldn’t sleep without a woman in his bed.
He also loved the ocean
And published Philip Roth when filthy Philip first got read.
When pre-spring March snow soft-focuses the city,
And the trees express their branches like lungs showing off their bronchi,
And the lined-up carriage horses stomp their hooves and whiten patiently,
I stay chained to my desk, honky honking honky.
from London Review of Books
DIANE SEUSS
* * *
Free Beer
I’m the one who can hold a mouthful of salt.
Bring him here, the fool dressed in prison stripes.
I can pray for him, even though his eyes are wild.
I can de-louse the rat.
When I was a kid I invited them all to a puppet show.
There were no puppets; I’d planned no show.
Free beer, I said, and they came.
I’ve seen a puppet theater.
It resides in the black cavern behind my eyes.
Thoughts are puppets, dangling from their tangled strings.
Bring him here, the one spinning on gloom’s rotisserie.
I’ll section an orange for the wretched bastard.
I’ll ladle him up a mugful of tears.
Free beer, I’ll say, though there is no beer.
from The Missouri Review
SANDRA SIMONDS
* * *
I Grade Online Humanities Tests
at McDonald’s where there are no black people
and there’s a multiple choice question
or white people about Don Quixote
or Asian or Indian people I don’t want to be around
people I want to be here where there is
free wireless I do not want to sit at the Christian
coffee shop nor the public
library No I want religion to blow itself up
My sister converted to Catholicism
I do not want to sit at Starbucks
I like McDonald’s coffee because it is cheap
and watery I like how it tastes
I like this table where the old man
is telling his old friend
about the baby black swan that he would feed
corn to in Cairo, Georgia, when he was a kid
No, Mark Twain did not write Don Quixote I’m going to
be here a while in this fucked up shit
You can get an old Crown Vic police car
In Cairo for $500 so I read
a poem by James Franco
in the literary magazine I brought with
My mechanic wants to fuck me
And the poem isn’t as bad
as people say he is bad One of his friends dies
in the poem He uses the word “cunt” I don’t know
what to make of it I read it as “Cnut,”
the medieval prince of Denmark who ascended and ascended
to become the king of England I bet some managers here could relate
to Cnut Send me a pic of your
cunt the mechanic says I miss you I say what do
you miss about me He says “your big tits”
Elliott Smith is mentioned in
the Franco poem and might or might not
be a “cowboy” Maybe Franco really
is bad after all The Crown Vic is
a vehicle the way the police always
say “vehicle” not “car” but the mechanic
always says “car” not “vehicle” because I teach
the police I know how they talk The mechanic
says Sandra, stop speeding and do you want
to see a picture of my wife No, Cervantes
did not write “Because I Could Not
Stop for Death” and I will be
sitting here all day in this fucked up shit god
dammit click click click I keep looking
at things like pictures of your husband
which makes me feel sick
and watery Now a young boy, maybe 8 or 10
in a booth across from me
is telling his mamma his daddy’s new girlfriend is ugly
“She’s ugly, mamma” and trying to comfort her
Do you want to meet in the Home Depot
parking lot? I don’t think this is a good
If I find you with him I’ll kill him
and I’ll kill you and no one will
know where your body But your husband
