fall 2016
Table of Contents
Return to Home PageCertain Things You Should Know About Rusty Kathleen M. Heideman
Notes From a Relationship with Hades (#1) Cindy Pereira
Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers Stuart A. Paterson
* (You test each hole for winter) * (Your shadow spreads across) * (Shielding your lips this stone) Simon Perchik
12:33 AM What Colour is That? Mormei Zanke
common time cloud variations Rachelle Pinnow
A Little Soap Work Leena Niemela
After Jim Morrison, May 1985 Manny Blacksher
Indian (4) Blood Quantum (8-9) Jordan Abel
Sigmund Freud, Action Figure Meghan Bell
That Night She Happened So Easy Nicomekl River Claire Matthews
10 words repeated Falcon oHara
sometimes old name warning: leaf kotasek
Livingston Cape Celyn Adam Day
Penmanship in Catholic School James Valvis
Tuesday Shared Accommodation Shaun Robinson
With Their Flicker Fork Tongues, Snakes Taste the Bitter, Bright Air Blue Moon Enters the Street Arleen Paré
Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers
Night vibrates to the far-near saw & hum
of motorway & airport, now & then
gets gutted by high otherworldly screams
wrenched out of helpless animals
or those we dare not think about
for fear they might be out there.
Mostly, though, this place limps past
on crippling clocks, a creaking door,
low-volume late-night TV shows, a lonely
child’s baby snores along the corridor,
the whispering nib occasional on forms
defining lives, routines, ourselves.
In daytime, chaos kicks you from behind
or chucks a cup or sets off fire alarms
& runs away while telling you to go & fuck
yourself. At night, it sleeps the way that
children should, wrapped tight in cartoon
duvet covers, cotton wool & splayed
like spiders, limbs akimbo on soft beds
in rooms knee-deep with vital clutter.
Silence, here, is bought by tiredness
of every kind, not word or plastic panacea,
& through it, every night, I walk afraid
of waking them before the crashing
sound of one more day that really breaks.