Poetry

READING IN THE CAR AT A PARKING LOT AT DAWN

by Mark Jackley

Because
there is silence. 
Every word is bright 

in the baroque 
instrument 
of the ear inside 

my skull. 
I attend.
In the sun the dew 

is crowning 
flowers, setting 
fire to their heads.

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Mark Jackley is the author of several chapbooks, most recently Every Green Word (Finishing Line Press), and a full-length collection, There Will Be Silence While You Wait (Plain View Press). His work has appeared in Evergreen Review, Sugar House Review, Body, Crate, Rougaroo, and other journals. He lives in Sterling, VA.

TALKING POINTS

by David Rigsbee

Reading the autobiography of her
ex-husband, my now-distant friend choked
with sarcasm at the omission of herself
and the children, seeing that as conclusive
evidence of a man, not self-promoting,
but self-erased. During the dinner
at which he had proposed more than
seventy years ago, he kept a cheat sheet
of talking points underneath his napkin
in case the conversation lagged. Thus no
one was surprised when, at his death,
he had left nothing of his estate
to his forbearing survivors, but divided
the dragon’s hoard between the library
and parks, and his late-life, buxom
caretaker spouse. It was pure Groucho
in the obviousness of it, but disbelief,
like belief, boils the frog slowly. At the end,
his sixty-year-old children still craved
love’s table crumbs, but he who had made
of himself the exception was scarcely
inconvenienced by his own demise.
Surrounded by the attentions of children
still starving for a nod or a touch, he
waved them away to stare at the sea
where he experienced a warm, valedictory fog,
his body released in its brittle turn, showing,
how even at the brink, one could be both
immersed in the wretched longings of others
and blessedly devoid of empathy too.

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David Rigsbee is the author of 19 books and chapbooks, including his new book, School of the Americas, just out from Black Lawrence Press.  His work has appeared in APR, Georgia Review, The New Yorker, Poetry, Southern Review, and many others. He is a Pushcart Prize winner for 2012, and earned an NEA Fellowship for Poetry for 2013.

SYRINX

by Derrick Austin

We are a song without a chorus. His fingers flutter
over the valves: crescendo, crescendo, crescendo,

legato. Outside, evening’s sulfur blows 
off the marsh where herons rest, white fires on dead trees. 

In my dream, I am the reed he plays. 
Water lettuces haul their skirts, twirling in the undertow.

Palmettos fan toads, squat in green velour,
and herons in their white suits quicken. In my dream, 

I am the reed he cuts. He teaches me to howl. 
I can’t tell the music from the knife, the moon, his teeth.

He carves new registers and plays a song that lights the air—
blood on a wing, a splash, the moon’s

staccato, toads lashing what flies closest
to their mouths—then goes as water rushing off the sedge.

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Derrick Austin is an assistant poetry editor at The Nervous Breakdown. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming inKnockout, Waccamaw, Crab Orchard Review, storySouth, and other journals. He won the 2011 Editorial Prize Contest sponsored by Tidal Basin Review and will be pursuing an MFA in poetry at the University of Michigan this fall.

SLEEPING IN ANDY’S BED

by Floydd Elliott

     		Lights off and Andy’s stars shine 
down from the ceiling.  I don’t know 
	any of them, but they all seem nice 
		enough.  Buttons sewn into a circle 
pattern, a wreath.  Must be dozens of them, their 
	function subverted 
		for the sake of art.  The smell of man 
I drank up 
	has long left this sewing room and 
		the two cats smile.  Handle with care.  

When I turned 
	I laughed at the scented beach 
		glass, warm and reeking.  Fluffer-nutter 
sandwiches like candy.  Andy must want 
	to eat it, knows all about this, but he’s married now.  
		Even the dolls have a 
safety latch.  
		She does love me.  Leg up 
	in a provocative pose.  Needles, many pictures, 
		scissors and their cuts.  Hallmark cards.  Guilt. 
The blade is always covered for safety.  

	It tasted awful, not privy to my mouth.  
		The two cats smiled, and it tasted worse 
than a handkerchief, embroidered with soap. Put one star 
	in my bedroom mouth. 

		Cards line the bowl, and 
just like last time, there are piles of Indiana.  
	What does Nap-town mean, or even a provocative 
		pose?  Andy must want to eat it.  
The smell of man to handle.  Only one 
	of the dolls is married 
		now.  There are always her magazines, piles 
			of them, well read, investigated, in a special 
order I am not privy to.  Clipped.  Needles, too.  The year 
	or the year in pictures, but definitely many uses for 
		Easter baskets.  Corn is free with purchase here 
in Indiana.  
	Andy’s stars shine down on me.  A
		provocative pose.  But he’s 
			married now and his scent is gone.  
Eat the beach glass, it looks like candy.  
The server is fluffer-nutter like candy sandwiches. 
The ceiling posed upon the window sill 
	invisible, the hope ropes around 
		the doll's ankles, I miss you.

	My function must be subverted 
for the sake of stars.
	Guilt ropes me down.

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Floydd Elliot is a dad, husband, poet, writer, teacher. A recent graduate from NMSU’s Creative Writing Program. Ex-hockey player. Collector of useless things, such as vinyl records, vintage encyclopedias, and beer steins. He hails from Portland, Oregon and misses the rain and floating aroma of hops and barley that haunts the pubs there. Publications include DIN, Sin Fronteras/Writers Without Borders, and The Fun Journal.

LOVE MISDEMEANORS

by Kathleen Hellen

The adage sentiments the crime.
Hell hath no fury, right?

He’d done you wrong, so you were

Gilda in the role that ruined
Hayworth. You were Scarlett
slapping Rhett.

“Let’s all be manly,” Hepburn said
and she meant it. When Tracy shoved,
she kicked him and they kissed.

No one was confused.
No one was arrested.

If you loved him, if he hurt you,
that relay in your brain to the
amygdala made reason moot.

Even in rehearsals, Davis
slapped Flynn. The vixen Harlow crooned:
“Do it again.”

The Baron slapped Garbo.
Bud slapped the splendor
out of Deanie, fast.

Men slapped women,
women slapped back.

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Kathleen Hellen is a poet and the author of The Girl Who Loved Mothra (Finishing Line Press, 2010). Awards include the 2012 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Prize in poetry, with her collection, Umberto’s Night, forthcoming. Her work has appeared recently in Barnwood International Poetry Mag, Cimarron Review, The Evansville Review, Harpur Palate, Pedestal, Poemeleon, Poetry Northwest, among others; and was featured on WYPR’s The Signal.