a ballad for my best friend // Hayden Armos
deranged, I asked if you would come
with me into the pink abyss.
you said, it doesn’t matter what color the abyss is.
instead, let's say the abyss was a tunnel.
Pretend // Tricia Knoll
Let’s play spaceship in this generously decorated refrigerator box which pretends to guard against heat, meteors, and news flashes about dead friends.
Homespun // Molly Quinn
“They’ve done it again, those bastards,”
I grumble to him of the greed growing in our small town,
choking out the loveliness that used to flourish here.
The Shoemaker Finch That Does Not Exist // Les Bares
The serrated edge of a leaf on a beech tree
saws holes in the breeze, spins whirlpools
of air from its pointed tip.
It seems to be trying to tell me something
as it goes about its business being a leaf.
The Sundered Seams // Michael McIrvin
The man, considering without cease
how his world will soon be split to atoms, takes
the hand of his boy, who just asked if God
is in this gold-lit meadow among seedheads
heavy and swaying
Charcoal Husband // Tomias Keno
They’d put her in the side room by the vestry, the dusty one, where spare chairs were stacked to the ceiling, and a faded poster declared “Welcome new believers” in a font last seen on a yogurt lid.
The Middle of the End // Elena Ender
I can smell the tar bubbling up and oozing down the street as a sign of the end times. The cars get gobbled, and the drivers climb out of their windows to sit on top of their hot roofs until someone brings them a small bridge to get them to the sidewalk, a mound of pillows, or a plank of wood, perhaps. Our death is inevitable, but at least we can help our neighbor get back to their lawn where they step on frogs, fallen from the sky, croaking over and over.
Lobo, King of the Dogs // Lenore Weiss
I grew up amongst older kids, counting bees and straining chunks of sandstone into empty soup cans. I watched cats play with dead mice and then ran up the block to an abandoned house filled with ceramic bowls heaped with flies. Like us, there were dogs, strays that wandered in the neighborhood sniffing garbage cans.