Standing in the wind makes a wilderness / for the tribe to wander untethered by thought / quieted by mountains' grief
-Lee Sharkey, "When I fled it followed when I froze it slid forward"
Towards the east the snow-capped peak of Mt. Hood appeared at once tactile and impossibly distant, the craggy summit redolent of both beauty and death.
-Matthew Vollono, "Samaritan"
Some days I clean the rifle so it shines, / A steel slice of darkness in grease-stained hands.
-Hugh Martin, "Sonnet, M-16A2 Assault Rifle"
But the yellow-beaked night / bird - in the moonlight, / in the clover, / in the deep deep grass - / could hold me, / always
-Donika Ross, "Perhaps you tire of birds"
The lake will take on the hue of snowflakes unembarrassed by nakedness
-Daneen Wardrop, "Stir the Lake"
Sometimes it was like an actress was playing her, living in that strange cinderblock house,...the border between real and cartoon becoming harder to distinguish
-Jill Logan, "Tropism"
And when the wind rose at night we heard / the barn swallows gather and land inside us.
-Molly Bashaw, "There Were No Mirrors in That Farmhouse"
The best apples are burnt out stars getting time off for bad behavior.
-Cory Van Landingham, "Orchard"
In our mouths and palms, death and / the dream of death are one, / thanks to time.
-Christopher Salerno, "Ahead of Schedule"
Am antsy starfish. / On a mirror above a mirror.
-Greg Wrenn, "Circumcision"
We were a different kind of fool then, trimmed / stiff by patterns like stars we'd forget / except they held the night and sidewalks through it.
-Jill Osier, "Brother"
The howl boiled up through the soles of Everill's feet.
-Ann Gelder, "Origin"
Tape me to your eyelids : you'll see why beauty hurts
-Deborah Bogen, "Barbed Wire"
She is her own apple her own various worm and wax
-Renee Ashley, "She Thinks about the Shapes Things Take"
Trying to mother / these days the Devil courts me, writes his names / in my journal, my mirror, my mornings filled / with hanging smoke
-Wendy Noonan, "Lord, help me eat them bitter words"
My lips have tasted golden bees in the rowans, / spring water running from Mount Funiu.
-Lan Lan, "Mother" (trans. Fiona Sze-Lorrain)
If you were a whale / and I a ship, I'd see you / coming for me
-Kevin Ducey, "Beauty, first whale then monkey"
The flames groped the ceiling, Peter, and the smoke from the pages blackened their faces like coal soot.
-Robert Kloss, "When Are You Going to Finish Don Quixote?"
Last night the dog star stood above my bed --
-Peter Cooley, "Imperialism"
Forks can't solve it any more than a kettle.
-Steven Cramer, from "Clangings"
The sun was rising, and we were alone. For a moment, her strained face was luminous in the dawn light.
-Steven Schwartz, "So This Is It"
I listen to the rain fall like apology, / kneading the pillow to its fresher side.
-Amy Fleury, "Two Solitudes"
I was talking to preachy-preach about kissy-kiss
-Pixies, "Bone Machine"
Yesterday she walked out of the woods and into a meadow
-Angie DeCola, "Learned Ever to Pine"
I'll rush along a gypsy camp of a dark street / In a black spring carriage chasing a bird cherry branch,
-Osip Mandelstam, "I'll rush along a gypsy camp..." (trans. Ian Probstein)
When they were ten and lost their friends, it took my breath away.
-Katharine Haake, "Diptych: Chrysalis, Prayer"
Drawing stars, and drawing firs, gentleness comes to open the vein.
-Sarah Gridley, "Charcoal"
& if we put the tree back / into the ground in our yard, / a Christmas come in June / & if we were to unspool gold / ribbons through its lower branches
-Carolina Ebeid, "Epithalamium"
I love you badly, Phantom, whose absolute brilliance assigns you to this zone.
-Jeffrey Pethybridge, "[Twenty thousand songs]"
Lucy's baby is born green, face splotched with yellow like variegated leaves, hair wispy white, corncob cornsilk.
-Tessa Mellas, "Beanstalk"
I could be thinking of a color, a girl, and suddenly it will be there large, / and gray and waiting for accuracy.
-Geffrey Davis, "Revising the Storm, 1991"
In the quiet aftermath of this small personal disaster a single / ray of light sliced a line too bright to face a divide
-Alice B. Fogel, "House of Habit"
To each house came an invitation, silk-edged / and engraved, to the hanging in Concord in May.
-Cate Whetzel, "The Hanging of Frank C. Almy..."
All we've built by mind and fist / is ravishingly stealable, in wait / of liberation.
Matthew Vollono Samaritan When Henry first saw the girl she was standing at the top of the exit ramp on Glisan Street, holding a cardboard sign and asking drivers for spare change. Her bag was a secondhand rucksack, the flaps held in place with safety pins and knotted twine, her dreadlocks tied behind her head in a towering bundle. Her name was Alana, and she was nineteen years old.
Ann Gelder Origin A man named Everill Gander was born in Elkhart, Indiana, in 1920. His father was an engineer and his mother a schoolteacher. He was the sixth of eight children. He often joked that his parents had given him his unusual first name so they would not forget about him completely.
Essays
Katharine Haake Diptych: Chrysalis, Prayer One winter when the boys were young we visited a friend of my sister who lives in the mountains near a small pond where we skated. Lacking neighbors, my sister’s friend rescues wild animals, especially birds of prey, and at the time we visited, was keeping one owl permanently in her home and two hawks, still mending before their release. All the birds had yellow eyes.
Poetry
"Train crosses the field, a page that erases heavy footsteps" Lan Lan translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain Molly Bashaw Steven Cramer Hugh Martin Lee Sharkey Danniel Schoonebeek Amy Fleury Geffrey Davis Christopher Salerno Donika Ross "I am the sun and the sky / And the hot bruise I squint against" All this and more.
Cover art: Bathed in Yellow by Shanna Bruschi. 2010. Oil on canvas. 24 x 24 inches. www.shannabruschi.com
Number 80 Table of Contents
Fiction
Ann Gelder
Origin
Robert Kloss
When Are You Going to Finish Don Quixote?
Jill Logan
Tropism
Tessa Mellas
Beanstalk
Matthew Vollono
Samaritan
Essays
Katharine Haake
Diptych: Chrysalis, Prayer
Steven Schwartz
So This Is It
Poetry
Renée Ashley
She Thinks about the Shapes Things Take
Molly Bashaw
There Were No Mirrors in That Farmhouse
Deborah Bogen
Barbed Wire
Peter Cooley
Imperialism
The Fist
Steven Cramer
Two poems from Clangings
Geffrey Davis
Revising the Storm, 1991
Angie DeCola
Learned Ever to Pine
Kevin Ducey
Beauty, first whale then monkey
Carolina Ebeid
Epithalamium
Veronicas of a Matador
Amy Fleury
Two Solitudes
Ablution
Alice B. Fogel
House of Habit
Sarah Gridley
Charcoal
Edifice
Megan Grumbling
The Heist
Joanna I. Kaminski
Faith
Keeper
Hugh Martin
Sonnet, M-16A2 Assault Rifle
Lan Lan
In a Small Shop
Train, Train
Mother
Translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain
Wendy Noonan
Lord, help me eat them bitter words
Snare of snares, my sisters
Jeffrey Pethybridge
[Twenty thousand songs]
Osip Mandelstam
I’ll rush along a gypsy camp of a dark street
They run like a gypsy crowd
Translated by Ian Probstein
Jill Osier
Brother
Donika Ross
Archaeology
Perhaps you tire of birds
Christopher Salerno
Ahead of Schedule
Byronic Method
Of the Brave
Danniel Schoonebeek
Genealogy (rest)
Telegram (a prophecy)
Lee Sharkey
When I fled it followed when I froze it slid forward
While they sing they have no names
Ground truthing
Corey Van Landingham
Orchard
What You Will Encounter
Daneen Wardrop
Stir the Lake
Cate Whetzel
The Hanging of Frank C. Almy
for the Murder of Christie Warden
Wayne Harrison Storm Damage The weather forecaster said after midnight, but by two a.m. it still hasn’t come. Tiffany has been waiting; she’s watched all the sitcoms. Now the TV is muted on a shopping channel as she wanders around the apartment, looking at the rooms, not quite missing them but feeling a nostalgia that moves her to find her diary.
Laura Van Etten To the Holidays It was a mistake. Just a bad misunderstanding from the start. The lawyer bought her the first drink. The pilot bought her the second. And there were two corporate types with generous tabs.
Essay
Nancy McCabe Before and After “Meet intelligent, sensitive singles just like you!” the classified ad coaxed. I don’t know if it was those words that first caught my eye, or the advertisement below it, the diet pill one that coupled Before and After photos.
Poetry
"All things written feel a little terrified at first" Mary Ruefle Michael Teig Jehanne Dubrow Tahir Hamut translated by Joshua Freeman Cynthia Hogue Richard Jackson Katherine Soniat Christopher Howell Alexandra Teague Albert Goldbarth "I wish they’d hurry up, / those exuberant genius medico-mensches..."All this and more.
Cover art: Kerem by Eran Shakine. 2004. Oil on linen. 190 x 170 cm. Courtesy of Zemack Contemporary Art Gallery. www.zcagallery.com
Number 79 Table of Contents
Fiction
Jasmine Beach-Ferrara
Love the Soldier
Wayne Harrison
Storm Damage
Nicolaus Aufdenkampe
We Love Your Work
Scott Ditzler
The Million-Dollar Dream Car Giveaway
Laura Van Etten
To the Holidays
Hugh Sheehy
Variations on a Theme
Essay
Nancy McCabe
Before and After
Poetry
Cynthia Hogue
On Securities and Exchange
At the Lawrence Tree
Katherine Soniat
Aerial Photo Ops of the Biome
Point, Line, and Plane
Michael Teig
Poultry Chronicle
Hazard Avoidance Routine
Maya Sarishvili
[I’ll pair my children up with poems,]
[Starched curtains everywhere]
[It was for fear of the wall clock]
Translated from the Georgian by Timothy Kercher and Nene Giorgadze
Mary Ruefle
The Estate of Single Blessedness
Rumours of Earth
Up Above
John Repp
Poem Beginning with a Line from Pound’s “Canto XX” & Ending with a Line from “Notes for Canto CXX”
Road-Trip Poem (with Dream Fragments), Ending with a Line from Blind Karen
Katharine Coles
Not Just Having the Feeling
Mirage
Albert Goldbarth
Flute Speaks
A Survey: Frankenstein Under the Front Porch Light
Near Death Experience
Weston Cutter
Yours, Alaska,
Real Maps to Chicago and Elsewhere
Adrienne Su
The Life of the Mind
Christopher Howell
Edward Hopper
Tiny Bees Clung to Us
Christopher DeWeese
The Lagoon
The Pier
The Forest Fire
Michael Chitwood
Fist
Near Miss
Austin LaGrone
On Parole
Air Ratchet and Forklift
Michael Blumenthal
Motel on the Mountain
The Past
Rebecca Dunham
Emblem
On the Theme of Hands
Jehanne Dubrow
The Leap
Shot Through with Holes
Allison Seay
Figment
Sick Room
Alexandra Teague
Perpetual Motion
Notes Before Moving
Tahir Hamut
Journey to the South
Eve of Qurban Eid, ’93
Translated from the Uyghur by Joshua Freeman
Richard Jackson
My Many Disguises
Sifting
78
Fiction
Marjorie Celona All Galaxies Moving “I don’t believe in fate,” said Fry, to a pockfaced man on the number 16 bus shortly after, “but at that moment, I knew I’d done something I wasn’t supposed to do.”
Dennis McFadden Blue Side Up "The altimeter holding steady at six thousand feet, the ball-bank indicator shivers. You spot Ruthie at seven thousand feet. One o’clock high. She is perfectly intact, stamped in relief on the surface of a cloud."
Essays
Brandon Davis Jennings Operation Iraqi Freedom Is My Fault "I was in Saudi Arabia before Operation Iraqi Freedom began, so you can blame me for everything."
Poetry
"Enter here the courtyard of hollow-boned wings." Joni Wallace Juliet Patterson Tadeusz Dabrowski translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones James Grinwis Lo Kwa Mei-en Bianca Stone Lee Upton John Hodgen Maria Hummel Sam Witt Alessandra Lynch James McCorkle "thickets fill / with what the wind / carries hand to mouth" All this and more.
Cover art: photomicrograph of a Belgian lambic beer. Courtesy of Michael W. Davidson, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, and the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University. Visit the Molecular Expressions Photo Gallery
Fiction
Marjorie Celona All Galaxies Moving
Julie Chinitz Lou Rosenthal’s Answer to Harold Rosenthal’s Complaint (1980)
Rebecca Makkai The November Story
Dennis McFadden Blue Side Up
George Singleton Bait
Essays
Brandon Davis Jennings Operation Iraqi Freedom Is My Fault
Anne Lacy A Partial Tally of Sins against the Fauna
Scott Nadelson Pal Man
Poetry
Charlotte Boulay american songbook
Claudia Cortese Catherine of Siena Rusalka
James Grinwis Landscape of the Husked There Is the Desire for Freedom to Go Anywhere and Also the Desire to Be Tied Down
Charlotte Boulay fruits of my labor
Andrej Hocevar The Sun Is Shining above Europe Getting Used to the Light translated by Laura Solomon and the author
John Hodgen The Busy Griefs For My Father, Constant Soldier in That Vast Army of Men Who Have Claimed and Avowed with Absolute Authority That They Have Never Won a Goddamned Thing in Their Whole Goddamned Lives
Nathan Hoks Flight to the Exterior Glow of the Interior
Maria Hummel Sleep Barnacle Puzzle Carousel, Ten Days after His Third Transfusion
Tadeusz Dabrowski the voice id translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Alessandra Lynch Inheritance Carry Him Carry Him
Laura Maher These Nights Come Winter and Water
Lo Kwa Mei-en Addiction Ephemera Immigrant
James McCorkle May Days Verge of Summer Updraft
Michael McFee Fly Swatter High Cross
Sierra Nelson Examination of the Modern Life of the Soul Not towards a Real, towards Another
Juliet Patterson Extinction Event
Anne Marie Rooney First Domestic Eighth Domestic
Bianca Stone Someone Else’s Wedding Vows 101 Things to Do This Winter
Lee Upton Bottled Eurydice Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May
Joni Wallace Valentine with saints and sharps Valentine with broken birds National Monument
Sam Witt The Aphasia Ward The Photographer in Thomas Jefferson’s Bedroom at Poplar Forest
77
Fiction
Christine Byl Tell Me Something about Arizona “Thanks for calling, sweetie,” says Russell. “Is it very hot there?” he begins to ask, but she has already hung up the phone.
K. F. Enggass I Hope To God You Smoke "Greta called acting normal glossing over the truth. She called it forgetting. I called it facing reality or moving forward, Greta said I was living a lie—and so on . . ."
Chris Gavaler The Hole It Would Leave "I live in the laundry room, this half of it . . ."
Poetry
"The dead man is of the future, but he will not breathe a word of it." Marvin Bell Molly Bashaw Billy Collins Dara Wier G. C. Waldrep Emily Rosko Emmanuel Moses translated by Marilyn Hacker Ray Amorosi Melissa Kwasny Mark Irwin Jennifer Militello "Hello to generations that etcetera as we watch." All this and more.
Cover art by John Dowd. Florida Orange. Oil on linen. 16” x 20”. Courtesy of the artist andThe William-Scott Gallery
Fiction
Tess Wheelwright
Max Donaldson and His Son
Jane Delury
Ants
Claire Guyton
The 7 Stages of a Parental Visit
Akshay Ahuja
The Gates
Christine Byl
Tell Me Something about Arizona
K. F. Enggass
I Hope To God You Smoke
Chris Gavaler
The Hole It Would Leave
Poetry
Melissa Kwasny
Clairvoyance (Your Word)
Mark Irwin
About
Helmet
Emily Rosko
To Pasture
[The world is deceived with ornament]
Timbered
Leonard Kress
Surplus
Law of Resemblances
Jennifer Militello
A Dictionary at the Turn of the Millennium
A Dictionary of the Garment
Marvin Bell
The Book of the Dead Man (Decomposition)
The Book of the Dead Man (Kiss Kiss)
Robert Bense
River Town Longueurs
G. C. Waldrep
The Dream of Egypt
Billy Collins
Drawing You from Memory
Thieves
David Shumate
Seven Essential Fairy Tales
Moving Away from Home
John Gallaher
Everything You Know That Isn’t True
Dara Wier
Bevelled, Windowless, Cruciform Bunkers
Lovers at the Crossroads
Are You Happy?
Emmanuel Moses
de Préludes et fugues, Cycle A
from Preludes and Fugues, Cycle A
translated by Marilyn Hacker
Ray Amorosi
In His Own Acre
About Angels
Crickets
David Keplinger
from “The Crown of Light at Assisi”
Near the Amphitheater in Gubbio
Henry Hart
Winter of Discontent, England 1978-79
Cell Phone God
Kevin Ducey
Berlin’s hanging upside down
W. Benjamin opens for the Plasmatics
Patrick Moran
Dopplegangster
Administranger
Vernaculiar
Laurie Clements Lambeth
Not to Praise
When
Theodore Worozbyt
Cavalcade of Stars
Identifications
Molly Bashaw
Letter to a Farm
Every Time I Have Never Been Here Before
Lucy Anderton
Not Something To Be Captured, Did You See the Signs?
Close Catch
Charlie Smith
Just Now
One Spell
Melissa Kwasny
Clairvoyance (Little Evening)
76
Fiction Elizabeth Oness Protect and Serve "The man walked toward a car that Ramsey thought couldn’t be his . . . a beat-up Volvo with a bumper sticker that said Comfort the disturbed. Disturb the comfortable."
Ron Savage American Daredevil “If you’re breathing, you’re a daredevil.”—Noah Laws after his first public jump.
Dan Pinkerton Law of Averages “I’m in a hurry to get there. I’m just not in any rush to come home.”
Poetry “It is new to be beautiful” Kary Wayson Bob Hicok Sarah Gorham Nance Van Winckel Barbara Claire Freeman Catherine Wing Chard deNiord Kevin Prufer George Eklund Deborah Bogen Allan Peterson “history keeps / handing me its mirrors” All this and more.
Cover art by Angie Renfro. Until Another Day. 2007. Oil on panel. 24” x 16”. Courtesy of the artist and Huff Harrington Fine Art, Ltd.
Table of Contents
Fiction
Elizabeth Oness Protect and Serve
Kelly Luce Amorometer
Dan Pinkerton Law of Averages
Ron Savage American Daredevil
John Kinsella Memorial
Pankaj Challa Reunion
Mary Cross Doing the Loop
Gary Fincke Smart Boy
Poetry
Allan Peterson Such Occurrences
Kevin Prufer Ars Poetica Love Poem
S. E. Smith Introduction to Semaphore But Pilgrims Never Suffered
Kary Wayson The Lives of the Artists
Bob Hicok Errands Aubade with whales
Lauren Barrier Standing on a Candlelit Barn Now a branch,
Wayne Miller The Mind Sliding The Fever
Sarah Gorham Floaters Floating City
Deborah Bogen Asylum
Read Blinn Earth and Sky
George Eklund Climbing the Tallest Pine From the Face of a Painter’s Hour
Michael Chitwood Where I’m Coming From Go in Fear of Abstractions
Barbara Claire Freeman Blindness and Hindsight Heraclitus
Alison Powell On the Desire to Levitate Darling, at the Inn After Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis
Sandra Meek Live Performance
Catherine Wing Self-Portrait Drag Enough
Christopher Howell Bon Voyage The Paradox of Place
Allan Peterson Placemat Exclamation
Tomaz Šalamun Toad Stool “To swim, to be highbred”
Laurie Capps Little Company Confession Twenty-Seven
Chard deNiord Withdrawal The Hand, The Bird
Nance Van Winckel Retablo
75
Fiction Michael P. KardosMediation“He had presented a choice, but there had been no decision to make."
Stacy M. Tintocalis The Tiki King Dad has figured it out: “Burbank isn’t even Apple-Pie America anymore.”
Essay Joelle FraserInspiration Point and the prison town of Susanville “This is what she told me: the boys had been quiet all day.”
Poetry “Start whispering, / someone whispers. It’s all we have.” John Gallaher Ray AmorosiTeresa PfeiferNorman DubieCatie RosemurgyErnest Farrés translated by Lawrence Venuti Hailey LeithauserTheodore WorozbytMaxine ScatesDean YoungSuzanne BuffamAll this and more.
Ray Amorosi In Fear of Leaving My Body Letter From Marcus Aurelius
Norman Dubie Again the Twentieth Century Realism The Magnesia Caesar
Alen Hamza The Old Bridge in Mostar In a Photograph Your Hands Melt
Catie Rosemurgy Neighbor: Miss Peach’s Body Didn’t Turn Out Right Doctor (2): Miss Peach Seeks Treatment at the Rural Health Care Walk-in Clinic
Simeon Berry &3
John Gallaher Anniversaries of Bad Things The House Rhapsody
Theodore Worozbyt Honey, Honey
Dean Young The Fox 53-Year-Old Pinata The Euphoria of Peoria
Ernest Farrés Edward Hopper: Girlie Show, 1941 Edward Hopper: New York Office, 1962 Translated by Lawrence Venuti
Teresa Pfeifer So To Speak: My Vowels Obey A Certain Way Matryoshka
G. C. Waldrep The Audience
Aleš Šteger Slina Saliva Trakulja Tapeworm Translated by Brian Henry
Hailey Leithauser The Conclusion of History Eurydice
Colin Cheney Stroud’s Digest on the Diseases of Birds
Maxine Scates The Future As We Were Talking
Philip Schultz Attention The Reasonable Houses of Osborne Lane
Suzanne Buffam The Solitary Angler Enough If You See It What Is It You See
74
Fiction Randy DeVitaGuarding MaryTri-State Security seeks self-help: “04:00: Mobile patrols suspended.”
Marjorie CelonaThis Is When I Love You the MostBobbie sneaks into Mr. Radcliffe’s office.
Essay Kat MeadsWhat Lies in Closets“The night the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped the heiress...” The Patty Hearst tell-all files revisited.
Poetry “Edges pretend that / one thing ends” Gail WronskyKevin DuceyDaneen WardropKevin ClarkEmmanuel Mosestranslated by Marilyn HackerAlbert GoldbarthMarianne BoruchFabio Morábitotranslated by Kathleen SnodgrassDeborah BogenAdrian C. LouisChristopher HowellLeon StokesburyPeter KlineAll this and more.
Cover art by David Ellis. Panel from Flow. 2007. Silver enamel and black gesso on tobacco-stained paper. Courtesy of the artist.
Table of Contents
Fiction
Randy DeVita Guarding Mary
Marjorie Celona This Is When I Love You the Most
Becky Hagenston Midnight, Licorice, Shadow
Miranda Beverly-Whittemore Pertussis
Steven Schwartz Blockage
Essay
Kat Meads What Lies in Closets
Poetry
Gail Wronsky When This Warm Scribe My Hand
Kevin Ducey relativity Cathar Kinks
Daneen Wardrop Tracks, Spread Hare, Saint Rows, Own
Kevin Clark Approaching Days
Seth Abramson Idiot House The Home-field
Michele Glazer Trace
Emmanuel Moses Monsieur Néant en alpiniste miraculé Mr. Nobody As The Last Mountaineer you will not know tu ne connaîtras pas Et je les tuai tous And I Killed Them All translated by Marilyn Hacker
Albert Goldbarth Party 2006
Lance Larsen Owner’s Manual To Jouissance
Hadara Bar-Nadav I Would Have Starved a Gnat The Angle of a Landscape
Marianne Boruch In the hospital parking lot The mosquito brings you blood, it
Michael Robins In This Quiet Shop of Song The Birds of Massachusetts Bay
Rosalynde Vas Dias Silent Defense
Nicolas Hundley The Blood You Let Fathering the Machine
Beth Marzoni After Viewing Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991) by Cornelia Parker
Fabio Morábito Cuarteto de Pompeya Pompeii Quartet translated by Kathleen Snodgrass
Deborah Bogen What We Know about Ghost Images Using a Blue Willow Pattern, the Anesthesiologist Explains the Procedure
K. A. Hays Psalm against a Rapture Isaac in the Mosaic at San Vitale
Adrian C. Louis Respite
Jeff Walker Itchy Is As Scratchy Does
Alessandra Lynch “Who mothered you? Silence and grass.” “First, air and light suffuse us—daylily, oriole, dust—"
John M. Anderson Line Drawing: Thurber’s Brother Shoots Him in the Eye with an Arrow Church Vault
Christopher Howell Another Letter to the Soul Marsh
Leon Stokesbury Midway
Peter Kline Unfathomer Insomnia
David Petruzelli Lost Hopper
Gail Wronsky Beneath the Ganges Where it is Dark Hatching in the Eucalyptus Tree Go On, Sure, Why Not
73
Fiction Gary Fincke's The Out-of-Sorts "He copyread sports, but he paid attention to every line of the article about the woman who’d kept police at bay with three poisonous snakes . . ."
Sean Ennis's Dependents The miracle of birth and a pack of stoners: "I met a kid the other day named Solomon and he was on a leash in Wal-Mart."
Amelia Kahaney's five days with The Temp An agency, a mother-of-pearl lighter, half-boots, and the final run for the elevator.
Poetry High degrees of “you are here” precisionBarbara Claire FreemanGeorge EklundKo Un translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé, Young-moo Kim, Gary GachCynthia HogueJames McCorkleBilly CollinsJennifer MilitelloTung-Hui HuEdip Cansever translated by Richard Tillinghast and Julia Clare TillinghastDorothy BarresiAll this and more.
Cover art by Tiffany Chung. White ’n Blue. 2006. Paper collage. 16” x 16”. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: 100 Tonson Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand.
Table of Contents
Fiction
John Tait Halfrica
Sean Ennis Dependents
Susan Perabo A Proper Burial
Amelia Kahaney The Temp
Christine Sneed Clown Testimonies
Gary Fincke The Out-of-Sorts
Poetry
Stacie Leatherman Flotsam
Allison Seay First House Elegy Train Dream Recovery
Young Smith Translation of a Ghalib (from no original text)
Barbara Claire Freeman Lept from the Steeple into the Blood Grass The Closing Bell
George Eklund Essay toward a Credo Essay on a Cold Blue Window
Chard deNiord My Other Body
Bob Hicok Sorta rah, sorta sis boom bah Somewhere in the midst of this, picture a horse
Peter Cooley Day after Tomorrow: Weather Watch Poem Against Poetry
James McCorkle To Those Precincts Crossed Source Code
Ko Un Heavy Snow Yesterday Grave Memories translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé, Young-moo Kim, and Gary Gach
Cynthia Hogue With Kayaks on Bumps River
Karla Kelsey Little Knot Motion and Hinge Little Knot Motion and Hinge
Billy Collins Aubade (detail) Split
F. Daniel Rzicznek Cardinal, Crow Letter, Found under a Floorboard
Sarah Gridley Anatomy of Listening Sunrise with Sea Monsters
David Wagoner The Cherry Tree
Jill Osier Yesterday the Girl with the Sad Half-Moon Mouth Said the North Pole Could Be Anywhere
Iván Oñate Ella She Arte poética The Art of Poetry translated by Steven J. Stewart
Jennifer Militello There’s No Such Thing as a Typical Day A Thorn in the Softest Part of the Hand
Edip Cansever Kirli agustos Dirty August Yangin Fire translated by Richard Tillinghast and Julia Clare Tillinghast
Richard Tillinghast The Face of Sappho
Robert Bense Notions of Exile and Sleep
Bruce Snider At the 2005 Midwest Taxidermy Convention At These Speeds
Dorothy Barresi Arriving Late at the Birthplace of Pentecostalism John Lennon’s Lips
Tung-Hui Hu Specimens under Ice Corrections
Carrie Fountain Embarrassment
Katherine Soniat Anise
John Kinsella Burning Eyes Canto of Wrath and Schadenfreude (Inferno, Fifth Circle, 8)
A. V. Christie Winter Afternoons Theme Park
72
Fiction Luke BlanchardFlash Burn The boiler tank, Nathan Birch, the Work, rifles, and the road dump.
Karen Brown Galatea “I married William in upstate before he turned out to be the Collegetown Creeper.”
Essays Carolyn WalkerChristian Becomes a Blur“‘Christian’s always been a little different,’ I tell Dr. Herbst, and I begin the litany that began in preschool. Resurrect the witches. Damn the bullies. Denounce the guy in my son’s head.”
Lia PurpuraStreet Scene “The eye disarrays the neatest sequence.”
Poetry The Ovidian ruckus and the little engine behind the ears Mark HallidayTomaz Šalamun translated by Brian Henry and the author Kaethe SchwehnMarie Étiennetranslated by Marilyn HackerDara WierH. E. Sayeh translated by Chad Sweeney and Mojdeh MarashiAdrienne SuDean Young All this and more.
Cover art by ECDC. A collaborative painting by the teachers and students of the N. E. Miles Early Childhood Development Center. 2007. Collage of tempera on paper. 9” x 12”.
Table of Contents
Fiction
Melanie Rae Thon Rika, Marika: Love Song for Griffin
Luke Blanchard Flash Burn
Karen Brown Galatea
Geoffrey Becker Another Coyote Story
E. V. Slate A Foothold in the Arabian Sea
Amber Dermont Assembling the Troops
Essays
Richard Katrovas Stalin’s Face
Carolyn Walker Christian Becomes a Blur
Lia Purpura Street Scene
Poetry
Janet Kaplan Marginalia
Tomaz Šalamun Mati in smrt Mother and Death Dokler te noc ne zastekli Until the Night Glazes You translated by Brian Henry and the author
Steve Mueske Queen’s Gambit Accepted The Black Rhino
Marie Étienne Ocean / Emotion translated by Marilyn Hacker
James Haug Reconstruction
Jonas Lerman The First Year of Everything
Sam Reed Summer Thunder, Colorado Plateau
Wayne Miller Hotel Life Poem Slipped between Two Lines by Vallejo
Deborah Bogen bearing on the glory of love Legend
Dara Wier Not Another Anthem 16 Stickers for Peace After Being Asked about Inclinations Regarding Qualifications
H. E. Sayeh Zendegie Life Holl Fright / Fear / Danger Chandin Hezar Omide Bani Aadam A Few Thousand Hopes of the Children of Adam translated by Chad Sweeney and Mojdeh Marashi
Paul Guest My Arms
James Grinwis Mostly I Entertain Ideas and Don’t Act on Them Of Phantoms
Gary Soto The Dime-Store Parakeet
Adrienne Su The Baby Years His Father’s Son
Kaethe Schwehn Pammy and Tanka Me to Tanka In the Convent Tanka Narrates a Slideshow of John the Baptist
Mark Halliday Three Flaws
Jude Nutter Frank O’Hara in Paradise
Ellen Wehle Snow Falling All Morning, I Read the Egyptian “Negative Confession”
Megan Gannon Definition Deep Sea
Dean Young Defib Post-Ovidian Man Overboard
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Fiction Gary FinckeThe Fierceness of Need Morrelli and Ed on Three Mile Island: “A mushroom cloud? We’re calling in sick.”
Quinn DaltonJimmy the Brain and the Beautiful Aideen
Celeste NgParallel Sam learns without touching.
Essay Nicole WalkerSlip “The house moves down the hill, whole, for a minute.”
Poetry Speaking for the faint echo and the world-floodMarianne BoruchNin Andrews “A poem believes it hears Jesus. / Yes, Jesus!”Chard deNiordSandy TsengCiaran BerryAlbert GoldbarthRené Char translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson“arches forge a fresh supply of wings”Srikanth ReddyWyn CooperAnd many more.
Cover art by Judy Ledgerwood. Glamourpuss. 1997. Oil on canvas. 84” x 96”. Courtesy of the artist and Rhona Hoffman Gallery.
Table of Contents
Fiction
John McNally Love’s Latent Defect
Gary Fincke The Fierceness of Need
Quinn Dalton Jimmy the Brain and the Beautiful Aideen
Celeste Ng Parallel
Erin Flanagan The Only Thing That Can Take You
Essay
Nicole Walker Slip
Poetry
Chris Forhan The Woods
Marianne Boruch A Musical Idea Glenn Gould Breathing The Garden
Ciaran Berry Electrocuting an Elephant Year of the Jackdaw
Albert Goldbarth The Singing Big Piles of Nothing Song: Misplaced
Edward Haworth Hoeppner Saint Ophelia Trees We Thought Were Walking
Baron Wormser Liberation (1986)
Laura Koritz The Ozz Man and the Sea
René Char Lutteurs Combatants Pourquoi la journée vole Why the Day Steals By Chaine Chain Éprise In Love translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson
G. C. Waldrep Appanage
Srikanth Reddy from Voyager
Nathan Hoks Poem Inside the Body
Chris Forhan My Life in Pictures
Nin Andrews The Soldier and the Poem Therapy Jesus Talks to a Poem
Michele Glazer bright things That Would Be Whidbey
Wyn Cooper Road Trip Porlock
James Harms Boundary Rider Lost and Through Lynda (Singing Chet Baker, 1988)
Debra Nystrom Strabismus Ash
Allison Titus Shipbuilding Shepherding
Mark Halperin In Odessa
Lisa Beskin The Suzuki Method
Chard deNiord Coyotes
Amanda Rachelle Warren Something Else in the Snow
Michael Chitwood The Conversion of the Khans
Nance Van Winckel Eat This One Eye Opens
John Mann Mr. Mann Goes to School Already in Progress, Mr. Mann
John Hodgen Girl with Her Tongue Stuck Out Sleep Comes to Mary Todd Lincoln
Sandy Tseng sent After All
Elena Karina Byrne O Mouth Fable After Stendhal: A Concordance on Leaving
