MOON IN THE HAYLOFT by Rich Ives 1. In the kingdom of the barn, below the cautionary woods, imagined falling talon and claw inside the rumbling stomachs of gatherers, each movement in its hidden nest, abandoned, fragile in its vigil, contemplated, not quite circular, like the egg, still waiting for something to fall out. 2. … [Read more…]
HEARTLAND by Leslee Rene Wright A landscape can go woozy with neglect. Barns slump over, ball gowns absent the bride, sheltered by sand pines too bored to be rabid. The horizon hosts a bare-bones picnic, a muddle of broad, brown cloth, weeds lashing at the leftovers, hillsides picked over for gold and all the trimmings, … [Read more…]
IT ISN’T STILLNESS by Gemma Cooper-Novack It is disruption and distortion Beneath your lips and buttery leather fingertips doors spring apart—you are every- where and nowhere and now here, and these nights, these nights these nights when you can’t be found are long like legs. You watch blankly from mahogany mantles, shifting scales. You angle … [Read more…]
I DON’T BELONG HERE by Gemma Cooper-Novack Outside the plexiglass thousands of sodden acres stretch and not a single human structure jars my sight. Ducks glide over the water that floods the plains and ripples from the wind chase one another like the way you speak: the lines stroking and wavering and vivid in sunlight, … [Read more…]
LUXURY by Gemma Cooper-Novack She can lie bare in dry cedar heat until her skin stretches into lizard geometry and it’s crisp on her lips delicious She can gaze through the haze on the roiling hills until the water bubbling up beneath her arms lies still and the light leaves her be She can see … [Read more…]