The Flash of Metal

by Sara Jean Yaste

The flash of metal shocks her. In it she sees the flash of memory, of her mother holding her hand when she drank a glass of soap mistaking it for lemonade, of her brother beating her up outside of their high school, right before they were to start a high school play, or her few boyfriends who couldn't handle her nature and also decided to use physical violence to deter her from herself.

She sees all these things and digs the metal deeper. "Not made for this life," keeps repeating over and over in her head, like a failsafe mantra, like an excuse, like an apology.

Another memory, "excuses are monuments of nothingness." A poem she was told to memorize and recite for her fourth grade class. Standing in line to leave the classroom and hearing comments from boys around her remarking that if she's standing a certain way or touching something it is because she likes whomever is making the statement. Two boys fighting over her on the playground (this was before she'd had her first kiss, mind you) and the teacher thinking it was funny and making snarky comments to her all the while.

Coming Home After a Long Absence, Cleaning

by Florence Helbing

 

Green glass of the wine bottle,

empty

because it was a “good night.”

Relic

or artifact, evidence

of your tenure here.

It was good wine, too.

At the time, you told me

it would be a nice touch

in the life we were going

to have: sophisticated and

well-adjusted, sipping wine

on a balcony. Each still

handling the other

with care.

Outline of your absence

no longer so conspicuous.

That’s okay. There is a place in me still

for those people, drunk

and shiny with happiness, who saw

in the pink sliver of dawn

a future, and believed it was theirs.

Why?

by Madison Grace Allen

 

Why do my eyes have to bear this?

One season has gone by and my sadness has expanded.

While they walk away my heart sinks.

A Job Ain't Nothin' But Work

by Jean Byrne

The morning’s sunshine reflects on the tables

And the holiday makers are easily

Separated from the work goers

I’m not really sure which I am

My coffee’s a little too sweet

I in no way needed this third cigarette

The interview’s soon and I’m not

Sure what they want from me

But surely they won’t give me what I want

Internship, a likely excuse to exploit

Someone as desperate as me

The bizarre situations we find ourselves in

Just to make a buck

Uncertainty feeds desperation

We’re scared and feeling grateful

To fuckers offering below minimum wage

We’ve lost it

And as a wise man once said

“A job ain’t nothin’ but work”

No River Shall the Sea Refuse

by Jarrett Fontaine

No river shall the sea refuse

there is no choice when chose for you

a milky bath of skyward blue

it's steady guide

the inward swim

rolls across your rippled skin

under currents panicked bare

the lifeless roar

of eye-locked stare

mysterion

she grabbed my hand

walked in water-swallowed sand

and sang to me

as we absorbed

but all her rhymes

just felt so forced

that anchor dragged on ocean's floor

in deeper waters waves recede

a stream of blue in blood I bleed

when empathy won't feel for you

no river shall the sea refuse.

Joel

by Brittany Cagle

Brackish water washed over

the tips of his feet as

the current drew

him violently in,

until he swirled

with the grasses

beneath the black water,

The landscape blurred into a string

of air bubbles and distant

strangers only saw that

quick blur of silver ripples.

I was dreaming somewhere in the distance,

with my friend sinking

underneath

the moonlit surface.

Maple Scarf

by Brittany Cagle

Under a harvest moon,

atmosphere smolders

red flames that lick fields of

corn stalk and golden thread.

Summer lurks behind in

fragmented memory,

has left reminders

in the bruised apples that litter

rows of leaf nests. And

silently they tumble down

the weathered skin of oak branches,

leaving a carpet to welcome snow.

Where Do the Balloons Go?

by Brittany Cagle

A balloon

rises, and

becomes a shrinking

emerald.

Helium breathes

In wisps of cloud.

A child

traces the sky,

his finger

to the sun.

The Words of a Dutiful Niece

by Adreyo Sen

 

It would be nice if one day
Words
Had the sweet immediacy
Of chocolate
Or some other such vehicle
For the treachery
Of sugar.

Words are cheap
Conjure them off
Thin air
Or make them king-sized
Dark satisfaction
In large letters carved
On marzipan
Or animal crackers.

Even the poor
Could gobble them off
Weighty tomes
And discarded
Ice cream wrappers
The stale ink would add a kick
Most promiscuous.

I could put your grieving bulk in front
Of a widescreen TV
And let Owen Wilson do his stunts
In deceptively convincing glee
As yet his wrists functional
And watch you float away
High and numbed
By saccharine comedy.

Myself
I would stick to chocolate
Treat myself to some sleek Godiva
Or naughty
After-Eight
After emptying your bank account and moving
To Aruba.

Molly Maguire's Pub

by Christian Reifsteck

 

I could never stand

a misplaced apostrophe,

so I do not buy

the black shirt hanging

from the pub’s tin ceiling

that reads, “Patricks’ a saint

I ain’t.”

I do not wear grammatical errors.

But the boys who pretend to be men

in their black leather biker vests and chain wallets

and tattoos encircling their necks

don’t know any better.

They pretend to be the devil himself—

antithesis of everything holy,

everything Saint Patrick.

I see it in their eyes,

through the smoke clinging to the tin ceiling

and the wrinkled posters of Irish landscapes

plastered to the lime green walls of this little corner bar

squeezed between the close neighborhood houses

surrounded by mountains in a little corner town

that pretends to be Irish in this little spot.

I see the hesitancy in their faces

the uncertainty, the small innocent fear

undetectable under a fifth beer,

invisible behind a beard,

and as subtle as an inappropriate apostrophe

that no one really notices.