If

by Chris Davidson and Aaron Belz

If “alignment of jaws and teeth” is set by
“use [of] cutlery during formative years,”
orthodontics is sisyphean. I’m unhappy
more than I’ll admit, but what’s to blame?

What knife and …

The Future Was To Be Lighter

by Adrian Blevins

And to weigh less. And to exemplify somehow
a more celestial routine

or at least not be so straight-up
old prairie weed and wind.

It was to be wraithlike and comprise
a …

The People Who Feel No Pain

by Jenny Browne

I let our daughter read a news story about one who walked months
                  on a broken pelvis before she noticed it
crunching inside her like dry leaves. …

Down by the Lake

by Ellen Birkett Morris

Kids went down by the lake to get high,
the man-made lake where they say
someone died,
that is where kids went to get high.

Open the wrought iron gate.
Follow …

San Fernando Valley

by Ralph Sneeden

Punctual gods of my father’s jet
propulsion tests lit up the San
Gabriels, counterfeit storms, deferred
call and response with flashbulbs ignited
to enshrine my sisters stooped beside
the concrete …

Still As A Heron

by Tim Kahl

Turn over a canoe and in three days it is
a spider subdivision. It is hard to imagine
their wasted effort by the time the canoe is
floating gently toward …

We used the new Crayola colors

by Claudia Serea

December 1989

 

Mourning black
were the women’s headscarves,
like crows perched on their heads,

and the graffiti smeared on walls:
“Peace to you,
our dead.”

We colored the air
red-yellow-blue
with chants
and …

Behind Blacktail Butte, Wyoming

by Grant Hier

Bison: dozens.
Rumbling moans.
They graze on brown
grasses and snort and low
as travelers in cars point, openmouthed,
frozen on the road—
as if dropped into a painting
from …

The New Colossus

by Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, …

In Keyholes

by Cynthia Atkins

There is an apothecary of neighbors,
who live next door with a fury
of tinctures and wisecracks.
Everybody wants a turn, a chance
to throw insults like stones into
the …

Spiced Wine

by Claudia Serea

Let me out, let me out,
the wine begs when I open the cellar.

I turn on the barrel’s faucet
and fill the pot with its slippery,
slinky eyes.

On the stove, …

Shinkawa’s Problem

by Ralph Sneeden

I wonder if he loved the ocean
even more that day the tsunami
swept his cottage from the soil
then miles out, a wave with arms
like a victor’s raking …