The And

by Aaron Belz

Let us begin with the and.

The and conjoins disjunctive clauses
in something less than matrimony, yes,
but no more separable than. (Take you and me.)
One famous place the and …

I Saw Death on the Third Street Promenade

by Randy Cauthen

wearing a creamcolor suit and

muttering at his blackberry and
eating a five-dollar widget of chocolate
with shades on to keep from meeting
the homeless veterans’ eyes

once I saw him once

Why Maggots

by David Hernandez

Because the plump bags of trash slumped

beside the house like black pumpkins.
Because eleven days passed and the bags
were still there, sun-baked, fly-mobbed.
Because they sighed as I dragged …

Strange Facts

by Bruce Cohen

There are certain portions of our lives that cannot be
Captured with a camera, are excluded from our diaries.
A jiffy is one one-hundredth of a second …

[She unknots the gold laces]

by Robert Thomas

She unknots the gold laces

of her stockings while he removes
his gloves of gray chamois … flashes of her white
shirt peer through the slash
of her bodice as she …

Ode to a Lamp

by Ethel Rackin

Lamp, you are an enchanting one

A hideous one besides
Your tortoiseshell exterior shines
Against the stark reason of morning
And complements even the silkiest afternoons
Causing one to comment, how …

Otho

by Amy Lawless

A suicide was performed by a man who

lives in this building by the name of Willie Mays.
And he’d never heard of the real Willie Mays.
So he threw trash …

Three Men

by Hilary Sideris

Paul

A man at thirteen, he led
his lamb to temple for

slaughter, knew Hebrew
songs, the taste & sting

of desert sand. He spoke
Aramaic, wrote in Greek

through a glass darkly,
turn …

Bikini Factory

by Caley O’Dwyer

The main thing was to get on a game show as soon as possible.

You’d be amazed what money can do, “and who,” Marvin added,
as he stepped inside the mouth. …

Becoming a California

by Joseph Mailander

for Trina Duke

I do not belong to any tribe,
not even my own; I do not belong
to the mid-Atlantic, where they fashion
dignity into a straight-jacket; I do not …

Bitterness

by Amy Holman

refers to Lotus Lilies, 1888, by Charles Courtney Curran

 

It is how I still
–this delirium river
a fever of openings, lotus the size
of tea kettles–
See them? Two women …

Blackbird Island

by D. Nurkse

Two sleepers in the pine cabin, both us,

horizon in the window like a spirit level,
Ferris Island with its single lamp, August,
annoying whoosh of the gold flies, suddenly imperceptible,