ZOE ANTOINE-PAUL | ODE TO BOY IN NIGHTCLUB
Ode to Boy in Nightclub
All I want is to keep you,
but you are still on the dance floor
and New York City feels like coming down.
An ephemeral march between
pitch black
and too much morning.
LISA PIAZZA | TRICKLE BACK, SAD SACK
Trickle Back, Sad Sack
Rae was a gray woman, then. Shadow-self. Seldom-felt. Gray night, gray sight. Out the window now she imagines the clouds form a window. A door. She could walk through it if she believed there was anything on the other side.
KORY VANCE | TODAY
Today
today, i am unemployed for the sake of bitter rest, sat at
a bar drinking my savings, considering the chattering
through my spine that might happen
if i place a blue lilly in someone’s
hair, the woman who is still
my secret
STEVE GERSON | ALONE TOGETHER
Alone Together
You can feel his pain. I’d get it on with him, but he’s always in some kind of world all to himself up there on the stage, the smoke from his ciggie swirling around his head like a curtain, him alone in the fog, part smoke, part dope, part isolato.
KEVIN CLOUTHER | STRAWBERRIES
Strawberries
At some point he would walk to her, or she would walk to him. Maybe they would walk to each other. Or maybe this was a dream, an entirely reasonable performance of the unconscious mind. She would think, upon waking, that was something. But it wasn’t anything, not yet. She was still deciding who she would be, and he was deciding too.
SHYLA SHEHAN | TO WHOM OR WHAT OR WHERE
To Whom or What or Where
It’s been low tide
for a while, the beach
parched. Seagulls search
for salvation from starvation
MICHELLE QUICK | SONAR
Sonar
Dandelion puffs hung like ghosts along the front porch. The house was silent. Seven peach pies cooled in the kitchen. Aunt Iris was out back, lying on the ground in front of Uncle Johnny’s shed, her blue dress darkened with sweat. Overalls lay neatly beside her. Her hand was in one of the pockets.