Issue #54


Authors

Sophomore Domestic

Scrape the india ink off the vinyl floorboard and feasting table—take the wood

finish with it—I’m living the life I always dreamed of, a whisper underneath 

your canopy, limbs behaved badly—I’m not sure, seeing you stitching, if you’ll

ever forgive me for this—pothos bursting through the door frame—bedroom wall 

enbirded—crossed double, spinning tops and foot racing, scaling brick and whooping

cough—greened up, cried out, gone through the other end, amble-bodied party scowl. 

Day dims, eye down throat sob-swollen & choking on Febreeze—shaking languid like

we were a disease—cleaning your dinner off my sheets—t-shirt in a perfect fold, cold 

worsed back to health—no suffering tonight on Forest Street. When the year looped

it broke—but how could we have known—bed death beggars belief—decapitated 

by blade above headboard—taken ill, consumed—smothered via pillow in the fourth

act—left strangled in linen—gone fortuitously in his sleep—neck dream-bent wrong.


anik anik abecedarian

Northeast Wanderer