Dear Born-Again Background

 
digitally active and hovering horny
      the owl w/ a round face                          the man dressed as a panther

 the law of the Pecos                   

                                                 wherein the bullet
          does not feel like anything

                                                                  and Tarot is showing
your love for his snow corpse

                 and Tarot is cursing                       the dark lake in Texas
wandering caped            through new wave transitions

                                  cutting a line                      black-eyed                       sailboat-soured
ill-fated cocaine.

                                            And Tarot is she                       likes her nurse name with fangs
sneaking birth control                   in the sedan with her grandpa

                                                    graffiti jeans                      dying cats hanging
her parents’ marriage annulled.

                                                                                     And Tarot is worried
                                                    her resolve explodes

but thing is even this mood                           will pass as she changes
                                 the neon-haired baby              

                                                                   from Brutus to Jason
                                 It’s the part of the tale

where power-down leaves you open                      to the guilt of the town.
                 You sit alone  

                                                    no body smell                  no dress pants
and no cigarettes.

The kidnapper’s bones                                                    drop in                        
your garage diorama.





You Said I Left Early

 
and empty. And our lives were gory. But it’s just that I didn’t
                                 need slapped at the advent
riding on top of sleep                    the sex drought               the hand

breaking the bed                                              between my legs sticky.
Pull yourself closer                         since something to move toward
the deer heart                                                                      the black spine

makes you feel undead                 more like an animal
                 repressing your stench                and your hair
w/ semi-fine china                                                             the pleasure of climbing

                the hoarse soothing over                              the same hill each day
the caterwauling intervals                            the bird diving wingless
                 witch bracelets and painkill         to save our routine.

I let the young ones                         discover ghost things
                since you’re the dark constant                     blue setting in
the smooth mane alluding                              the old woman will die

                the stitches still mending                    
like my father’s friend                    who fed the small alligator
                                threw it in the sewer.

                                                Our lives were glory
                                                                 going to the graveyard
                                                our lives were moving                     inside your chicken-skin ear.

                                                The old woman was loose then
                                                looking for everything

                                                                and this was the part
                                                where we squatted together
                                                in the illogical

                                                after painting a skull
                                                on the mouth of a cave.





We Accelerate the Dialectic

 
exorcize the upstairs                                                                     indoor alley bleachy bathrooms
                and nothing but night

then run laps around the shopping  mall
                 wash only our bangs                                    our arms won’t be silver

prêt a porter.
                                                   We want to risk                                             until we’re satisfied
                                  ignoring recordings                     the coin toss

                                                                    the throat of the crime
                                  ignoring the shorter man                            in his blue cape

                                    and licking your cock
                                    turning to three                               four five nostalgia
                                  plastic glow worms in a pocket.

The false unicorn cries                    when we tape on her horn

                                our unruly lips                      our bohemian necklines
                purring, comment on our status.



                                                 The distance of intimacy: here an impact
                                         there an impact                        here a warm skin
                                                                  and doesn’t this feel like false gesture?

                We thought you were listening                 to all of our songs
and sex was the antidote                             and sex was the moat

                                  we got across dry
                 and we strapped on our hooves
                                  to sell moonshine.





These Are the Lashes

 
the chainsaw                  the brass hearts                 the under-the-tree trash.

                                Passion is killing             reviving that blade.
                                Passion is saving            or hazing the witch.

                                I don’t know anymore                   in too-tight lingerie
                 how my hair should frame
                                 gun moll light and shadow                         a Texas tornado
                 this snowy owl chord of cocaine.


Wonder Saint are you out there
                 relaxing my sex like a vapor?

Orange lips and wet sands
Funnel my vaginal yolk.                I switch to Bettie Page

dominatrix skinning grapefruits              gaslit on the train
loving my greasy black bangs.


Then your bullet misses and you chase me all day
around and around                         the ice castles behind the shopping mall.

 Bio: Jessie Janeshek's chapbooks Spanish Donkey/Pear of Anguish and Rah-Rah Nostalgia are forthcoming from Grey Book Press and dancing girl press respectively. Her full-length collection of poems is Invisible Mink (Iris Press, 2010). An Assistant Professor of English and the Director of Writing at Bethany College, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and an M.F.A. from Emerson College. She co-edited the literary anthology Outscape: Writings on Fences and Frontiers (KWG Press, 2008). You can read more of her poetry at jessiejaneshek.net.

​


The Woman in the Black Car

She showed up at the row house next door everyday.  Her face was hidden so Johanna never got a good look.  It's not as if she wore a mask, but it's the way she held her skull - always pointed downwards as if stuck that way.  

Johanna couldn't imagine such a scenario.  A person who could never glance into another person's eyes.  A person stuck seeing only ground - pavement, grass, tile, wood.  

The woman that climbed out of the black car on evenings wore baggy clothes. Her hair was never up in a ponytail.  The long strands covered her face as if another barrier.

Johanna began to stand at the window at 6:00 pm as a form of routine.  She left the curtain closed but, would press herself against the wall so she could see the woman through a sliver of light.  

The woman arrived when the people that lived there were not home.  She brought a child with her, the same child Johanna imagined she heard through the row house walls, although perhaps a different one. The woman would sometimes stand outside with the toddler, collecting rocks as if to savor the time between car and house.  

Often, Johanna would arrive home late from work and the woman in the black car with the child that could be the child she heard through the walls would scoop the child up and take him to the other side of the lawn.  They would turn away from her, continue their excavation of the earth with their backs positioned like No Trespassing signs.

Johanna began to fear seeing the woman and boy.  She would hear the car arrive and would immediately call someone on her phone just to listen to another voice. 

The woman in the black car didn't seem to miss her at the window.  The woman in the black car with the boy would eventually go inside her neighbor's row house.

She hated the row house.  It seemed an escape for the woman and the boy - a realm that seemed hollow because it was never seen.  

It was a Friday when Johanna arrived home to the woman and boy for the last time.  Maybe it was the delirium from the stress at work, but Johanna couldn't take it anymore.  The woman and the boy made themselves into an impassable wall again. She got out of her car and picked up a rock from the ground.  

"Here's a pretty one," she said and the boy couldn't help but turn around.  He reminded her of her brother.  A red head with a perfect smile, perfect dimples.  It broke her heart for a minute, not because she had lost him to drug addiction, but because she imagined this was how her own little boy would look if time had allowed.  

The boy ran towards her.  The woman turned and ran after him.  The woman tried to keep her face down as she scrambled to stop him.  

Johanna did the unthinkable when the woman came close enough; she held out her foot and tripped her.  The woman fell to the ground and Johanna tackled her until she could see the woman's face.  

The little boy's glee turned to a scream, which contorted into the last screaming rage of her brother, the last time she saw him before the overdose. Johanna let out a gasp.

The woman was her mother, or the woman she had seen in photos.  Her face was a cluster of bruises.  She was holding her stomach as if Johanna would kick it. Her stomach was full with life, about to give birth.  Johanna stepped back as the woman screamed, "Michael, Michael, leave us alone."

A chill ran down Johanna's back.  She ran into the house and locked the door, but the wails continued.  She peered out at her brother, now fully grown, begging a man to stop hitting his mother.  The man was not there, but the boy thrashed at the wind anyways.  

Johanna looked at her mother, or the last of her.  The police had always said it was a suicide-homicide, that after her mother gave birth, she went crazy with postpartum.  

Johanna shook her head.  She knew the truth.  She watched as welts appeared all over her brother.  He screamed, "Someone protect the baby,” and there was a baby in the woman's arms.  

​Her mother grabbed a rock and brought it down on the wind over and over again.

The Teacup       

By Monica Mamchur
           
            The teacup. The rim is lined with gold and it is painted so softly in pearly pastels it is as though a baby’s breath brushed the color onto its surface. A tiny Renaissance style painting encircled by iridescent gold leaves adorns two sides of the cup. The curve of the S-shaped handle, so dainty and feminine, made me feel like a princess whenever my grandma served me her mango tea. A matching saucer, a silver teaspoon. Ever since I can remember remembering, that teacup represented my grandma and it has come to symbolize our relationship. She was my Mormor, literally Mother’s Mother in Danish.
           
            She passed away when I was twenty-three. I hadn’t seen her for five years prior because at the age of eighteen, instead of continuing to travel to Denmark every two or three years as had been my family’s custom, I took advantage of my adult independence and began to explore other areas of the world. I went North, South, East, and West of Denmark decorating my dusty backpack with flags from each European country as if they were badges. Then a volunteer stint in Costa Rica turned into an obsession with South America. My connections in South America led to a job in China and a growing network of colleagues and friends then steered me to New York, Toronto, Montreal and unexpectedly, the East coast of Canada four times. I filled my early adult years with travel and all that I learned during that time led me eagerly back to school again and again to eventually collect degree after degree. I was busy and energized and engaged.

            Often that little voice inside my head would suggest, Maybe it’s time to go back to Denmark. Go see your family. Mormor’s getting old. And a year later, when her neighbor found her slumped, crying, and disoriented in the elevator, I thought, Mormor’s sick. What if she doesn’t get better? You have to get back. But then another opportunity would present itself, something that seemed impossible or even irresponsible to pass up. At least, that’s what my twenty-something year old mind told me. I was focused on career and life development. And so, I’d delay the trip back to Copenhagen. When I got the news that she had passed away, I was crushed. You didn’t get back to see her. How could you have let this happen?
 
                                                                                                                               * * *
 
            It’s 1979. My family always stays with Mormor when we visit our relatives in Copenhagen. Her old red brick apartment building smells of mold, but I never associate that with danger, only comfort and familiarity. (To this day, whenever I come across that musky odour, I close my eyes and inhale deeply, filling my lungs and mind with memories). Her apartment is on the third and top floor. We can easily and quickly take the dank stairwell to her front door, but we prefer the clunky old elevator that really is nothing more than a wooden box with a three-person maximum capacity. My cousins and sisters and I sometimes squeeze all six of our child bodies in at once, elbows poking each other, sandaled feet being trampled upon. It frequently gets stuck that elevator, which as young children, thrills us. Our moms, sisters themselves, yell half-heartedly, laugh, and swear at us in Danish when we jump up and down, jamming the elevator on purpose, or when we push the alarm button just for fun. We laugh right back at them, mimicking and marveling at how everything in Danish, even the swear words sound like a cheerful little elf song.
            
            Mormor’s apartment is of average size by European standards; two bedrooms, a kitchen, a sizeable living and dining room, and a bathroom with a toilet that flushes by pulling the rope dangling from the ceiling. The furnishings and décor are simple. An oak dining room table, an antique desk that still displays my late Morfar’s typewriter, a blue couch behind which I frequently hide during hide n’ seek, and a white cabinet full of china and Italian glassware. The great windows of her apartment, with sills layered thick in years of white paint, open outwards toward the busy traffic. Every time I open one and lean out, I marvel at how the simple absence of window screens serves to include me, instantly, in the bustle below. The balcony, like the elevator, can only comfortably fit three people standing. We test our bravery by stepping directly on the cracks of the concrete floor. Mom, will this fall away one day?
           
            My family, all four or five of us, share the single spare bedroom. I fall asleep with my face buried deeply in the down quilt, drinking in the fresh scent of clean linens. Sleep comes quickly. In the morning, I wake early, disoriented and needing a moment to remember where I am. Then I hear Mormor getting ready before the sun has even risen and I smile. Quietly and quickly, I slip on my clothes and tiptoe to the hall to meet her, the wooden floor cold and creaking beneath my feet. I am intent on not waking anyone because I want Mormor to myself for what has become our daily dawn ritual, every two or three years.

            She is wearing one of the five dresses that seem to make up her entire wardrobe, save for her bathing suit. Her thick-heeled black leather shoes bulge on the sides from the bunions on her feet. They must hurt her, but she never complains. She is perpetually full of smiles and hearty open-mouthed laughs that show the gold capped tooth at the back of her mouth. She is a sturdy woman built of kind determination. With her handbag over her forearm and a sky blue silk scarf tied around her head and under her chin, she takes me by the hand. “Er du klar?”  Immediately, I can feel the warmth of her love emanating from her palm as I rub my thumb over the soft, wrinkled skin of her fingers and knuckles. Then we set off.
           
            I revel in that three block walk through the city to the bakery. Though she is in her seventies, Mormor’s pace is quick and I do my best to match it. I watch her watching the city, mastering the lights, taking in the noise. I inhale the bus exhaust that lingers in the air feeling invigorated, worldly, and at home. It is noisy with traffic and ambulance sirens that sound different than in Canada. Baa-boo-baa-boo. Long drawn out syllables. Pigeons gather on specific corners waiting for the hot dog vendors to open shop and ready to catch the bread crumbs and sometimes an entire bun that might fall from the hands of a clumsy toddler. Mormor guards me at every corner with her arm warning that cars don’t stop for pedestrians in Copenhagen. Neither do the bicycles which cruise along their own designated road right next to the cars, baskets full of groceries and carts full of children. Melding with the bustle, I feel like we are part of a carefully choreographed dance.
           
            The crowned pretzel hanging above the bakery doorway is Denmark’s symbol of fresh baked goodness and reason alone to visit this tiny country. I can smell the fluffy aroma a block away and almost taste it in the air. The bakery windows are fogged with moisture from the night’s magical toils and though it is only 6:30 in the morning, the store front is packed with people not yet showered, each holding their queue number, anticipating their order. It is loud, a bit chaotic, and definitely exciting. I am a little anxious we’ll miss our turn, but also know that Mormor has it under control. If anyone tries to take her turn she will politely, but with certainty, alert them to their faux pas.
           
            Six crusty poppy seed buns, six sesame seed, a French loaf, and four assorted pastries which later, we cut in half to share. My favorite are the lemon cream. The buns are still warm. She pays. I see her hand over the kroner and wonder how she never worries about how little she has, especially now that Morfar has died. But, she doesn’t. If it ever comes up in conversation, she laughs her hearty laugh and waves her hand in front of her face as if to shoo away the thought. And off we go.
           
            Back at home, we set the table together. Always a white lace table cloth, her fancy gold-rimmed china, and real silver cutlery. The clattering of the dishes, my giggles, and her laughs wake our family. She makes a pot of strong coffee and one of mango tea. I set out butter, jam, a cheese we affectionately refer to as “stinky feet cheese” and the basket full of our fresh baked breads and pastries. Sunlight spills in through the dining room window. The air is light. And there is the teacup. Mormor fills it with the steaming golden brew and I sip it like royalty. It makes me feel grown up, cosmopolitan, but also humble and grateful for our simple spread and cheerful company.
 
                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                       * * *
            
            Tante Anni has all Mormor’s possessions. There isn’t much. Five dresses, two pairs of shoes, the lace table cloth, china, silver and from Morfar, an accordion, a typewriter, and the antique desk. “You can have whatever you want, Monica. It might be hard to transport certain things back to Canada though.”
         
             “All I want is a cup and saucer.”
         
             “One cup and saucer? Why not take all of them?”
         
            “I just want one.”
         
            “It’s not worth anything, you know.”
         
            “I know.”
 

                                                                                                                       * * *
 
            A few years later, I find myself waitressing, once again, to once again pay my way through school. It’s Thursday, Jazz night in the Oakroom Lounge at the palatial Palliser Hotel in downtown Calgary. The band is on a short break between sets when she enters. I don’t know it’s her at first. How could I? She is totally unassuming with her cropped grey hair, drop pearl earrings and smart pant suit - not a flowing, floral garb and not adorned with chunky gem stone jewelry as one might expect. There is no aroma of patchouli. Her expression of calm and confident suggests a woman grounded in herself and her surroundings. She sits at the last open table in my section. It isn’t until I set down her glass of Syrah that I realize who she is.
           
            “Thank you, Monica,” she reads my nametag. “I know that you’re busy tonight Dear, but your grandma is here and she asked me to give you a message. If you want to hear it let me know.”
           
            I freeze.

            I stare.

            “You’re the psychic all the staff’s been talking about.”
           
            She nods, sipping her wine. A bold red. For a psychic? I would have guessed an organic herbal tea. Her husband works in oil and gas and she has accompanied him to Calgary on business. Talk around the hotel is that she is an incredible intuitive. I smile apprehensively and tell her I need a minute to think about it. I walk back to the bar, feeling like I have tunnel vision and oblivious to the almost throngs of customers now gathering for the second set. Confused and my stomach fluttering, I ask the bartender, “Hey Tommy? The woman at table sixteen – is that the psychic that everyone’s been talking about?” knowing of course, that it is, but needing some support. Why did it have to be my grandma with a message? Why not an ancient ancestor with whom I have zero emotional attachment?
           
             Tommy looks up from the 12-year old Lagavulin he is pouring and nods. “Yup.” Then he shakes his head slightly and continues pouring.
           
            “OK, so, she told me that my grandma is here and has a message for me.”
           
            He smiles, raising his eyebrows and continues filling drink orders.
           
            “So what do you think I should do?”
            “Oh man... I don’t know, Monica, that is totally up to you. I can’t tell you, but let me just say that I never used to believe in that crap until I met her. She rocked my world, dude.” He pulls out a shot glass, fills it with Lagavulin and sets it down by the ice well. “This is for you. You might need it later.”
           
            “What? Scotch? That’s way too strong. I can’t shoot that. Nobody shoots Lagavulin. I won’t need anything.”
           
            “Trust me.”
           
            I look back toward table sixteen. “Do you know her name?”
           
            “Linda.”

            “Linda? Really?” Scarlett, Chloe or even Moon Beam seems more plausible for a psychic’s name, but Linda? It was so normal. I suppose it does suit her appearance though. “OK,” I say more to myself than to Tommy. I summon some courage and walk back to her table.

            “Linda, right?”

            “Yes, that’s right.”

            “I’ve heard quite a bit about you from some of the other staff. You’ve impressed a lot of people.”

            “Have I? Well that’s a good thing,” she smiles softly looking me in the eye. Hers are blue.

            “Um, so, ok. I’ll hear the message. You said my grandma has a message for me?”      

            “Yes! Well, great. OK.” She settles into the deep royal blue and purple wing-backed chair. I stand beside her, hugging my empty tray against my chest trying to relax.  The lights are dim. The room is moody with notes of jazz still lingering and lively with chatter. The band is tuning their instruments and double checking the mics.
             
            Linda begins by describing my grandma’s physical features. Typical features for any eighty-some year-old woman, really. Then she says, “Your grandma is a strong woman. Cheerful. Always smiling it seems.”

            Could be anyone’s grandma, I lie to myself, trying to prepare for the message.

            “She says she was very confused in the last couple of years.” She pauses. I close my eyes briefly and force a breath. “Something happened between the two of you when you were eighteen.”

            I say nothing, feeling emotion swell into my throat. Linda is quiet. Waiting. Listening?

            “That’s the last time you saw her.” Now she closes her eyes and pauses. I hold my breath, my throat throbbing. “She wants you to forgive yourself. She’s telling me that you were young and smart and adventurous. You did all the things young people are supposed to do.” I clutch my tray firmly as if it can hold me up and somehow stop the well of tears. It does neither. I sit in the empty chair beside Linda and cry into a cocktail napkin. Linda smiles and leans in, “Your grandma is laughing.”
 

                                                                                                                         * * *

            The teacup sits on a small white shelf in my dining room. It has come to represent my relationship with Mormor and the adventure of our pre-dawn expeditions, which perhaps became the jumping off point for the adult person I would become. I never use the teacup, but look at it often and when I do, I am reminded of Mormor’s independence and courage, of wanting to be like her and of lemon cream pastries.

 Bio:  Monica Mamchur has been writing since she was in grade school. Her first poem was published at the age of thirteen in Rebound (1983), a collection of children’s writings. She studied and completed a diploma in journalism at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in 1992, but quickly realized that instead of just reporting news about people partaking in both ordinary and extraordinary activities around her, she wanted to be part of that action and so, at the age of eighteen, began travelling on her own. Monica recorded her adventures in numerous travel journals enjoying the challenge of integrating herself into the world’s communities, investigating people’s stories, and writing from the heart. She went on to earn a BA in International Development Studies (2000) and a Bachelor of Nursing degree (2004), both from the University of Calgary.

Author photo: Kim Faires Photography

Ichthyander

1.
I saw you first 
in a Turkish village
Under a big tree, 
you, the old white beard Meddah
with no eyes 
telling the stories 
with no end
I was drunk listening
to the voice of storm
of  the unending stories
one after one...

I fell in love
at first hearing 

I controlled my tears though

You know
Shahjadis can't cry!

I ordered my soldiers
to behead you
and tore out the vocal cord 
might I  have kept 
only-
for myself
you  cursed me before your last breath-
me devoid of love.
never
ever!

2.
Last year, 
I saw you
dived into the water
as if you are not 
made of skin
but
made of slime
and your fin
(is it a Siamese feet?)  
created a water storm
like a tsunami
A wild perfume
from your coral body
I got me insane

remembered the curse
I controlled my tears carefully
I tore out the blue of the sea

I fell in love again 
with the fish man
lost under the sea
as if a butterfly
swims in the sky





Chase

She adores 
the pawns over
the chessboard

She is the white king
She is the black king
She-
the queens 
along with
the bishops,
knights
rooks 
moving
forward, backward,
sideways, 
or diagonally -
She defeats the kings
as well as the queens
...
While moving the pieces
blindly
in the black and white square,
Don't ever think  Shafin,
you are the only player
in the world...

​

​

 Bio: Shafinur Shafin, poet from Bangladesh and also an editor of the webzine Prachya Review. Poetry is her passion.

A Pretty Smile
 
       I didn't have enough money for a full set of dentures and the county dentist only accepted cash in hand (he said on the phone that he'd gotten sick of chasin' down late payments) so I had to settle for a bridge. Luckily, I still had a couple of eye teeth to hook the new fronts onto.
       I'd been fired from my job at Kash'N'Kary last week (after Bobby got through with me) and if you've never had to seek employment while your smile shows the gum where there should be incisors you can count yourself lucky. People look at you like you was somethin' scraped off the bottom of their shoes if your cheeks get hollow.
       I think it's because people think that poverty is contagious, somehow, and not a sickness that you can't help, either. It's treated more like the clap than the flu. Something a better person could avoid, or at least treat with enough willpower and effort.
       Anyway, there I was with the choice of gettin' the water turned back on on or financing a new smile, and out of things to sell after I stuck the 'For Sale' sign in the cracked windshield of my shitty, rusted out Volkswagen. I paid the phone bill, though. Good luck gettin' a job if the boss can't call you. One of my neighbours let me draw a plastic gallon jug of water from her garden hose and I gave myself a cat-bath by pouring about two cups of it onto a dish and scrubbing my armpits with salt. It burned, but it worked. Hell, I don't mind. My granny cleaned herself like this every day of her life, even when she had soap.
       When I was dry, I put on my best Goodwill clothes and walked two miles to the bus stop.
       According to the sign, a bus came out here once every two hours. When I finally find another job I'm going to have to plan accordingly. It's going to be one hell of a commute into Palmetto.
       If I could live closer without losin' granny's house, I would. It's just four white-painted wood walls standing on cinderblocks, just three rooms with a leaky roof settin' on a postage-stamp, but it's all my family ever had. I got to hold onto it for the sake of my blood.
       By the time I made it to the bus stop my ratty old pump-tongued Reeboks were stained gray with the dust and so was the bluejean hem of my dress. I stood there for about an hour, leanin' against the trunk of a Queen Anne palmtree and smellin' the sweat-stink rising up from my crotch, before the bus finally pulled up. I slid my quarters into the slot by the driver and settled myself down in the near-empty back row.
       The ride wasn't too bad. I've always liked looking out of windows and if you're a good driver you don't get the chance to do that very often, unless you got someone drivin' for you and in that case you've got to pay attention to him unless you want to make your honey angry.
       We passed the orange groves, those long hollow-eyed trailers they keep the migrant workers in, passed the Tropicana orange juice plant, then the Esso gas station that gave away free coffee two years ago, one paper cup per person, per day, the whole first week it was open. I watched the country degrade into township and I felt somethin' steel slide into me, somethin' cold and hard settling into my guts the same way it always does when I cross that border.
       I could hear my granny, loud as life, talkin' to me inside of my head. She said, 'Such a shame, Norma. When I was a chile we took care of ourselves. We grew cane and tobacco which we traded for supplies at at the Post. My daddy went out huntin' and brought home braces of opossums and gators, sometimes he'd catch a rafter of turkeys or even a deer. We didn't have much, but we took care of ourselves. Now you got to go out there and be a shame to the family. I bet you've even forgotten how good a hot, fatty biscuit tastes, or how to make a mess of grits into something edible. If it were my day you'd be married to someone steady. You might have been beat some, but you'd have kept your teeth until you'd birthed a baby or two...'
       I turned her off then. That's the nice thing about the dead. If it's daytime, and you're in public, you can shut them off like radio.
       Anyway, the bus was filling up fast. There were a lot of black people, more Mexicans, and one or two white faces sticking out like the pale grains in a jar of crushed pepper. I didn't talk to any of them. Weren't none of them my kind. But lookin' at them was enough to serve as a distraction.
       I got off three stops from the station and walked the mile into the office of the only local dentist who will take a body without any insurance. It was a cinderblock box, painted with a coat of white that glittered in the sun, peppered with specks of mica. There were some purple wanderin' Jew plants growin' by the doorway, and a mummified brown lizard stuck in the corner of the door, caught and flattened between the wall and the hinges.
       The receptionist was a heavy blond lady with a set of long, purple acrylic fingernails who looked up and glowered at me so hard from behind her linoleum counter that I felt self conscious at myself and smiled at her. The shocked look on her face soothed the embarrassment I felt at forgettin' again about the state of my mouth.
       I filled in the paperwork, laid my greasy stack of cash by her fat, freckled paw, and sat in the single white-plastic lawn chair decoratin' the waiting room.
       Eventually, the dentist called me into his office. I sat down in the brown reclinin' chair (it was patched with silver strips of duct tape) while he reached in with ungloved hands and measured my mouth. I felt him palpating my eye-teeth (they wouldn't move, no matter how hard he wiggled them) and then he did the same with my molars and frowned, sayin', 'Miss Nelson, these back ones are going. You sure you can't scrape up another two-hundred? You'd be better off if I just pulled them right out and fit a plate in there. You're getting a used bridge anyway, and a lot of people come to this state to die off. I could get you a fine set for a total of seven-hundred dollars.'
       Dr Bronson pulled his fingers out of my mouth, wiping my saliva off on the collar of my dress. I answered him, 'I already sold my car to get these-uns. I can't raise no more until I find myself a job.'
       The dentist turned away from me, arranging a selection of ivory-coloured teeth onto his rust-speckled tray. He spoke as he tried them, one by one, against the width of my mouth, 'All right. I know how that is.'
       I felt a click in my mouth, and Dr Bronson smiled, 'Yep. That'll do nicely.' He winked at me, sliding one thick lid over a rheumy brown eye, 'The undertaker sold me this one just yesterday. Lucky for you that old man bought it, or you'd be out of luck. All the others were too small. You've got a mouth like a man, practically.'
       He held up a blue-plastic handmirror and I saw my face in it. The dentures were huge, and coffee-stained. They looked like they hadn't been cleaned in a while. But at least they looked natural. I told the dentist, 'Thanks' and resolved to give them a good bleach scrubbing as soon as I could get Miss Ginny to lend me a capfull.
       Dr Bronson stuck his hand out and I shook it. He said, 'Tell you what. You use these teeth for now but don't damage them. When you've got the extra money saved up I'll take them back and get you some real dentures. I can always resell these to somebody else.'
       I thanked him kindly for that, and told him to plan on seeing me again in three or four months. Then I walked back out into the swelterin' sunlight and started making my round of Dollar Stores and Cost-Cutters. I had about four hours before the last bus back home and I meant to spend as much time as I could filling out applications.


​

 Bio: Bethany W Pope is an award-winning writer. She received her PhD from Aberystwyth University’s Creative Writing program, and her MA from the University of Wales Trinity St David. She has published several collections of poetry: A Radiance (Cultured Llama, 2012) Crown of Thorns, (Oneiros Books, 2013), The Gospel of Flies (Writing Knights Press 2014), and Undisturbed Circles (Lapwing, 2014). Her collection The Rag and Boneyard, shall be published soon by Indigo Dreams and her chapbook Among The White Roots Will be released by Three Drops Press next autumn. Her first novel, Masque, shall be published by Seren in 2016. 

A Blue Light

Up the high road,
her shadow was lamenting split rocks.
The sun was in agony.
Between two winds
the nymphs
of time were silently singing.
Under the sun’s invisible rays
Sappho was walking,
while stumbling in stony rubbish.
The unexpected winter surprised her.
Her voice vanished into a sea of mist,
whereas the wind was still wild.
The path to enlightenment was (still) full
of thorns.
In this chaotic vacuity
a blue light appeared through her hair.
 



a sparkling path of enlightenment

I found a dead moth
on my window sill.

{Still} the buzzing of the bees.
{Still} the echo of silence.

{Still} my window is open:
The ethereal lights
in the garden never cease beaming.

Ants are {still} crawling on the grass
Herbs whisper to the sun.
—Exhalations from the lawn cracks.

Lights reached to my psyche,
and it seemed they touch the best place.

Useless shoots removed.
Soon everything would start afresh.
And the dead moth resurrected.
 


Sans Domicile Fixe

Her hair is full of lice. That’s her life.
She walks aimlessly across the main street
leaving only dust behind her fringe area.
Now, she is grimacing at the anonymous crowd,
while caressing the parasites in her hair.
That cringe has come again heavier than mountains.
She lets out a big heavy sigh & says,
You are going to be a star today.
The cringe eases up
and what was once a mountain
becomes a silky light sheet fluttering in the sky.
Her red hair with those tiny black spots astounds everyone
as she resumes walking aimlessly with only one purpose:
To be a star in an anonymous crowd.
 


A Kind of a Maze

His anger is like bubbles.
Your anger is like water.

You drink your wine in the bathtub.
He drinks his wine beside the gutter.

He moves from right to left.
You move from left to right.

​The center is lost in an underground labyrinth.
—An unexplainable vacuum.


​

 Bio: Ali Znaidi (b.1977) lives in Redeyef, Tunisia. He is the author of several chapbooks, including Experimental Ruminations (Fowlpox Press, 2012),Moon’s Cloth Embroidered with Poems (Origami Poems Project, 2012), Bye, Donna Summer! (Fowlpox Press, 2014), Taste of the Edge(Kind of a Hurricane Press, 2014), and Mathemaku x5 (Spacecraft Press, 2015). For more, visit aliznaidi.blogspot.com. 

 Robert F. Gross? Bio? Robert F. Gross is a playwright, director, performance artist, writer, queer, lone wolf, and lost soul. He lives alone. His work has recently appeared in Local Nomad, Thirteen Mynah Birds, and After the Pause. ​

Today Only!
 
beside the photograph
       is an advertisement
 
the photograph shows a woman
       barefoot
       in the ruins of her home
       <what was it? – tornadohurricanetsunamiearthquake>
 
       she appears to be weeping
 
the advertisement is for shoes
       50% off – hurry! today only! buy now!
 
it is impossible to buy shoes for the woman in the photograph
 
for her
       it is not today



 
Grief
there is no other word for it
                                             : Grief
 
the shrouds are white
               the tears are reflexive
                              the anguish is profound
 
it is quiet here
               except for the crickle of newspapers
                              as the cat walks over them
 
scratch of sunlight on the carpet
 
it is loud there
               with the crying and thunderous tears
 
the shrouds make a soft ploufing sound
               like fresh bedsheets on a summer morning



 
green
               so green
the bayonets seem out of place
and the rifles they are attached to
and the soldiers holding the rifles
 
blue
               so blue
the bodies beside the road
seem out of place
their positions
               awkward unaffected unique
 
no one can smell the stench from here
nor hear the silence
               of their breathing



​

 Bio: John C. Goodman is a Canadian writer and Pushcart Prize nominee. He has published three collections of poetry, most recently Dark Age (Grey Borders), as well as a novel which was short-listed for an Arthur Ellis Award, and a novella, The Duck Lake Chronicles (Quattro Books). He also authored the non-fiction work Poetry: Tools & Techniques (Gneiss Press). John is the past editor of ditch, (www.ditchpoetry.com), an online magazine of experimental poetry. He currently lives in British Columbia, Canada. 

Rhythm

We wrapped our rituals in little kerchiefs
proud of doing away with the past. Yesterday
I saw slivers of our silk flutter with some
fury on a faraway street, teaching me what
I already know. I like the surety of symploce:
seatbelt in stationariness.




Spark

In your absence ciphers of lust release their return.
Is incontinency a part of my exuberance? Or do
I need to unclothe other texts? Anathematization
is inherent in some arguments. Tears are my
trademark, yielding is yours. Can one argue with zyxt?
The provenance of my poems are locked in the lanes
we did or didn’t traverse, a lifetime winks past
my personhood while I am hounded by hundreds
my wrist did not write.




VULNERABILITIES

As we undressed unseen covers were
purchased from an invisible store as
protective sheath. Orphaned by pain
we had no patience to nurse the scions
of stress with their tutti of tantrums.





SHOULDER
 
Cold breeze and cafune:
the sky in a rufous weave.
Bungs can’t bottle up
fragrance for keeps. I gave
you my fears so you had
the safety to surrender.




AD LIB
 
In the quiet of my quilt
I’ve had them all.
Guilt-ridden I prayed
antlers wouldn’t erect  
on my pate.
Age enabled me
to understand
innocuousness of the act.
 
In some climes
it’s still the warmest
bridge ever.
I wonder why
beaming
plays no part in it?





LOOSE ENDS
 
(1)
 
When you’re struggling
to say it right
sometimes even the paper
seems wrong.
 
(2)
 
A tip revolves around the fulcrum
of one’s financial muscle,
quirk for quickness.
There is no heart here.
This is speed money.
 
(3)
 
Anyone who is on an answering
machine mode is without saying,
screaming:  I’m not in love.
 
(4)
 
The know-how with which
you caressed my cheek, comes
back when another paws me.
Artfulness or ardor?
 
(5)
 
An office-holder spots me
tip outside the gyre.
He bows his bean.
 
Good man --
he has mastered…
mechanics of graft.



​

 Bio: The recently released, This Summer and That Summer,(Bloomsbury) is Sanjeev Sethi’s third book of poems. His work also includes well-received volumes, Nine Summers Laterand Suddenly For Someone. He has, at various phases of his career, written for newspapers, magazines, and journals. He has produced radio and television programs.
 
His poems have found a home in The London Magazine, The Fortnightly Review, Allegro Poetry Magazine,  The Galway Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, Off the Coast Literary Journal, Hamilton Stone Review, Literary Orphans, Crack the Spine Literary Magazine, The Peregrine Muse, Otoliths, Café Dissensus Everyday, The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Section 8 Magazine,Futures Trading Anthology Three, and elsewhere. Poems are forthcoming in Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Ink Sweat & Tears,First Literary Review-East, Pyrokinection, Meniscus, The Jawline Review, The Open Mouse, Drunk Monkeys, Amaryllis Poetry, Harbinger Asylum and Linden Avenue Literary Journal.He lives in Mumbai, India. ​

Altitude Sickness/ Sleight Of Hand  

The thin rising noise, I can feel it in my teeth

Like a Tibetan singing bowl

Struck so gently

What machinery speaks to me with such wide kindness? 

It’s barely a Pavlovian mannerism

A harmless riddle:

A bird when there is no bird

A wake when there is no dream

Absorbing the signal for such a long time can’t be healthy

It’s how the body fossilizes

How the magicians keep you watching





Locked Room Mystery 

So here’s the disappearance, strangers in the boiler room as the case may be

However quaint the notion may seem now

We can circle from this vantage point 

Hindsight and numerical superiority 

The kind that used to be popular entertainment

Watch,

The signal escapes us in the tunnel, here

Like a carnival ride, grab your sweetheart and close your eyes

The closest thing to a ghost we can find

Light and sound suspended like a bird of prey approaching

In this isolated space of the attenuated outside

What engine

What greased mechanism

But how did I know?

That outside

It was snowing





Enough Said The Glacier  

There’s enough furnace dust for everyone

Enough thirst

Enough, the musicality of French ambulance sirens

We believe in you

But slip up once and we will throw you to the cold 


​

 Bio: Nate Maxson is a writer and performance artist. He is the author of several collections of poetry including 'The Whisper Gallery' and 'The Age Of Jive'. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.