Fired by Michael Holme

You smiled when she told you it was over. Ironically

she hated your silences, 

but this moved your new found tongue 

as she sat in your 1970 Triumph Herald; 

battery drained; engine still.

She could have stood. 

It was a weighty scooter to ride. 

On a third tiring push

petrol ignited.

It must have been your euphoria

at being rid of her,

because you talked all her way home.

For almost a year she’d had free petrol

and never bought you a beer. In seven days

she’d summed her loss. 

She rang with an olive branch.

You didn’t commit.

Michael Holme is a two times science graduate who took to writing in 2000. He has been published many times both online and in the Christian journal 'Time of singing.' He lives with his dog Lucy in Manchester, UK. He'd love a Lotus Europa.

Badminton by Sara Biggs Chaney

3 mos. Triple marker results—abnormally high protein.

6 mos. Ultrasound—possible markers of genetic disorder, unknown.  

Recommended fetal amniocentesis to determine child’s condition. Parents declined.

After the ultrasound,

we drive south.  

We are going to the marshes,

our rackets beside us.

The dirt road is empty.

Nettles scrape our thighs.

Wet ground clutches us.

We exchange no word.

Then you back up to serve,

not minding the brush,

sting under foot. 

You toss the birdie high and gentle--allow an easy return.

From my stolid post I raise an arm,

tap back my answer.

Once before we came here,

to the muddiest promontory,

you tucked me in your concave parts,

told me how well we fit.

Today,             I swell inside

your grandmother’s dress,

(lime nylon with a jacket to match.)

I trip through grasses-- ringed, babied,  

unsound.

From now on,             both of us will carry our own fear, fleshed

in a question unasked.

We toss, we catch, we cradle.

Our lives:  An old game

in new territory.

Sara Biggs Chaney lives, works, and walks her dog in Vermont. Her work is forthcoming in Stone Highway Review, Crack the Spine, Eunoia Review, and other places. You can catch up with her at sarabiggschaney.blogspot.com.

Reunion by William Cullen, Jr.

The dead linger with us

so we must bury them again

outside of ourselves

in ground we'll never draw near

until like a line of fine mist

casting no shadow

we merge with other mist

over earth almost fogotten

forming beads of fresh dew

on stones that bear our names.

 

 

William Cullen, Jr., is a veteran and works at a non-profit in Brooklyn, NY.  His poetry has appeared in Camroc Press Review, Gulf Stream, Pirene's Fountain, Red River Review, Right Hand Pointing, Spillway, Wild Goose Poetry Review and Word Riot.

From Lover-Boy in the Desert by John Grey

Cactus taller than a New York Knick,

wind wooly and dry,

alien antennae ears on rabbits,

lizards with skin of clotted beards...

feel like I’m on another planet,

and the mountains, so haunting,

especially at dusk,

where the red’s so pervasive,

I’d be wearing it

if I weren’t so gold already.

I’m sending you a postcard

because I’ve no access to email out here.

Besides, with email, I could be in the next room.

But a card purchased at a Texaco station

somewhere in the Arizona desert,

you really know where the word is coming from.

In this case, out of the hissing mouth

of a rattle snake.

But turn it over.

That’s where the brief,

“Wish you were here” awaits.

And don’t forget the X’s

and the magic word, “Love.”

Tomorrow, I’m booked into the Desert Motel.

They advertise as being wired.

Read the fine print on this card,

I’m wired already.

John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published in International Poetry Review, Chrysalis and the science fiction anthology, “Futuredaze” with work upcoming in Potomac Review, Sanskrit and Fox Cry Review.

Hit and Run by M.J. Iuppa

Some would study this rented room’s disarray & think:

priority, scanning the loose stacks of papers, the open

desk drawer stuffed with receipts & unpaid bills– secret

stash of miniature chocolate bars for just in case & notice,

on the lap of a swivel chair, the constant cherry top flash

of messages stored on a chunky white telephone. Every-

thing points North– like the last spin of the globe stopped

on a desert. They’d imagine the family in the photo, that one

friend who never forgot a birthday–  the tropical postcard

greeting: I am here. Wish you were too. No one knows how

he died exactly. He went for a walk on the mountain road

& never came back. Days later, they found half of him– legs

still dancing against a tree– some would say, he left out of spite.




M.J. Iuppa lives on a small farm near the shores of Lake Ontario.  Her most recent poems have appeared in Poetry East, The Chariton Review, Tar River Poetry, Blueline, The Prose Poem Project, and The Centrifugal Eye, among others.  Recent chapbook is As the Crows Flies (Foothills Publishing, 2008) and second full length collection, Within Reach, (Cherry Grove Collections, 2010); forthcoming prose chapbook Between Worlds (Foothills Publishing).  She is Writer-in-Residence and Director of the Visual and Performing Arts Minor program at St. John Fisher College, Rochester, NY.

Blur by Richard Schnap

He dreamed of a world

Engulfed in fog

Rendering all faceless

Each one following

The one who was closest

While another followed behind

And their voices faded

In the clouded air

So they knew no names

As they moved along

Through a vague landscape

With no beginning or end

Richard Schnap is a poet, songwriter and collagist living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His poems have most recently appeared locally, nationally and overseas in a variety of print and online publication.