Issue #54


Authors

Memoir with Visible Mending

Lanterns, vague branching paths, 

             (hard edges frozen over black bark),

          a song with so much purpose it stumbles

all night among the undergrowth

                  which crumples between well meaning mouths.

    Break off (along the prints of my little rubber boots).

          Then the clearing, the naked canvas,

then the velvet and endless white, (stars dripping

through Danae’s one cracked window),

              and our two perfect bodies

          (lying in their angels), our two perfect

bodies, carving out their right place.

No more snowballs, no more fistfights,

          feel our antlers unlock, do away

with the tedious violence of boyhood.

          Distant Song, (two hours later

you push yourself upright and

              smile down at me. I open my eyes.

      Look at my skirt.

  Velvet, white.

          Aren’t I so pretty 

out here?)


[It Was the First Hour of the First Day]

I still dream about the bombs