spring 2020
Table of Contents
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she is in the kitchen now
Nora Pace
Humid Weather
Me of Me
Catherine Strisik
Supermarket Lobsters
Robbie Gamble
Another Vision
Patricia Nelson
Breathturning Chris Checkwitch
Stem of Old French Creistre, To Grow
Of Stinging Nettle
Page Hill Starzinger
There Is No Substitute for Good Planning
Erin Kirsh
Tchaikovsky, Age 52, Finds His Inspiration
John Barton
Like the best myths
Medusozoa
Sarah Lyons-Lin
Communion of Tongues
Hege A. Jakobsen Lepri
Monologue of a Fly's Shadow
Monologue of a Cow's Shadow
Danielle Hanson
A Symptom of Resignation
The Gee Whiz Element of Tropical Storms and Symphonies
Jen Karetnick
A Twohanded Cut
The Tornado Cut
The Pandora Cut
Torben Robertson
How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Nachos
Jessica Covil
Six Gray Moons on a Screen
Eleanor Kedney
Moon Turned Her Half Face From Me
Lawrence Feuchtwanger
The Star
Diane Tucker
blue light
Stephanie Yue Duhem
Family Dinner
In Which I Re-name My Father
Poem Containing Only Words I Hate
griffin epstein
sold separately Lesley Battler
The Star
Backstage hallway, late.
I waited for my chorus boy
romance, his brown arms.
The silence after a show
is a black silence, a threat
that spreads like oil.
Into my wait, wandered
the star, a man too beautiful
to risk even looking at.
He stood in front of me.
Looked into the boys’
dressing room, back at me.
In his caressing baritone
he said something like It’s
hard to wait. It’s hard to love.
Then he kissed my cheek.
Tenderly, I thought then.
Now, I think, with pity too.
Years later the star died
of what his parents insisted
was pneumonia.
I wish I’d grabbed him
those years ago and held on.
Answered his pity with pity,
admitted our beauty couldn’t
save us from that silent hallway,
from its long emptiness.