fall 2017
Table of Contents
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Limits
New York
Brian Jerrold Koester
Ode to a Desiccated Olive
(Love is easier the headless way)
James Cagney
qualifications
for your consideration
Laura Yan
Persuasion
Freedom of Speech
Emma Winsor Wood
cold bright waves for sorrow leaf kotasek
Somebody Else's Heroes
Small Change
Jocko Benoit
The Malice in My Footsteps
Conyer Clayton
Familiar
Pianissimo
Jennifer van Alstyne
Pamplemousse Dominique Bernier-Cormier
What It Is About to Do Le Mouton Noir Dessa Bayrock
Rebelling Unrest Errata Dani Spinosa
Stereotypes like like i love you Andrew Warner
Unsolicited Relationship Advice
Erin Kirsh
The Travel Section Ghost Train Christopher Levenson
* (It was a lake, used to bodies :islands) * (Arm over arm you expect) Simon Perchik
Ecstasy Like Water to Soften Leather Jasmine Sky
Freedom of Speech
All I want to do is write confessional poems but the world’s not going in that direction anymore.
I spoke to a man on the phone about my potential as a voiceover artist and he said I “had the pipes” but not the passion. Call back in a few months, he said.
I’ve got a nasally lady-voice, quick as Microsoft’s brown fox. Slow down, my teachers tell me. Slow down, Mommy and Daddy and Nella and Clem tell me.
What? my husband asks. Never mind, I say. Never mind? he says.
I want to speak more than I want to be understood. I want to be understood more than I want to die.
Death is so quiet.
Knock it off with the all that “singing,” my poetry professor B. tells her husband. The world’s not going in that direction anymore.
The cemetery sprinklers are on despite the drought. Because that grass is people. That grass is DNA.
We’re really tired of the click-shut-closed ending after the 20th century, B. says.
I say it to my husband later on the phone, while walking to the St. Helena cemetery. But he doesn’t hear me.
What? he asks. Never mind, I say. Never mind? I want to hear what you said, he says.
All I want to do is write love poems. But the world’s not going in that direction anymore.
I tell my husband I want him to fuck me, but really I want us to fuck until we’ve both been fucked.
My voice is so loud. It “carries.” Shh, my conservative ex-boyfriend said whenever we argued about politics in bed. Shh, Mommy says at the Met, in the car, on the N train to 34th Street. Shh.
I want to be heard more than I want to be understood.
What? you ask. Never mind, I say. Never mind?