{"id":879,"date":"2015-12-03T19:00:21","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T00:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=879"},"modified":"2026-09-06T10:20:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T14:20:33","slug":"volume-three-issue-2-2015","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=879","title":{"rendered":"<strong><p style=\"color: #000000\">Volume Three, Issue 2 (2015)<\/p><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script><br \/>\n  (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){<br \/>\n  (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),<br \/>\n  m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)<br \/>\n  })(window,document,'script','https:\/\/www.google-analytics.com\/analytics.js','ga');<\/p>\n<p>  ga('create', 'UA-60884670-1', 'auto');<br \/>\n  ga('send', 'pageview');<\/p>\n<p><\/script><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Rats-Ass-Cover-Winter-2015-e1448848895321.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Rats-Ass-Cover-Winter-2015-237x300.jpg\" alt=\"Rat's Ass Cover Winter 2015\" width=\"237\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-958\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a id=\"poets\"><\/a><\/p>\n<hr size=\"3\" color=\"gray\">\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nWelcome to the winter 2015 issue of Rat&#8217;s Ass Review. We have many new poets as well as a generous selection of new poems by poets we have published in earlier issues.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIf you came here looking for a particular poet or poem, the links below will get you where you want to go. But don&#8217;t stop at that; wander around a little. You may never come here again; enjoy yourself for a few minutes. You will find your time well spent and well rewarded. \u2013Roderick Bates<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr size=\"3\" color=\"gray\">\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe Poets:<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMichael <a href=\"#Brockley\">Brockley<\/a>, Jacquelyn Grant <a href=\"#Brown\">Brown<\/a>,  David <a href=\"#Cavanagh\">Cavanagh<\/a>,  Michael <a href=\"#Coolen\">Coolen<\/a>, Jenifer <a href=\"#DeBellis\">DeBellis<\/a>,   Robert <a href=\"#Eastwood\"> Eastwood<\/a>,   David <a href=\"#Epstein\">Epstein<\/a>,   Sandra L. <a href=\"#Faulkner\"> Faulkner<\/a>,  Adele <a href=\"#Fraser\">Fraser<\/a>,   Michael <a href=\"#Friedman\"> Friedman<\/a>,   F. I.  <a href=\"#Goldhaber\">Goldhaber<\/a>,   Jennifer <a href=\"#Gravley\">Gravley<\/a>, John <a href=\"#Grey\">Grey<\/a>, Lois Marie <a href=\"#Harrod\">Harrod<\/a>,   Marianna <a href=\"#Hofer\">Hofer<\/a>,   Marc <a href=\"#Jampole\">Jampole<\/a>,   Vanessa <a href=\"#Jasek\">Jasek<\/a>,   Mary <a href=\"#Leonard\">Leonard<\/a>, Katharyn Howd <a href=\"#Machan\">Machan<\/a>,   Marina <a href=\"#Manoukian\">Manoukian<\/a>,     MD <a href=\"#Marcus\">Marcus<\/a>,   Tim <a href=\"#Mayo\">Mayo<\/a>,   Megan <a href=\"#Merchant\">Merchant<\/a>,   Leah <a href=\"#Mueller\">Mueller<\/a>,  Joey <a href=\"#Nicoletti\">Nicoletti<\/a>,  Kenneth <a href=\"#Pobo\">Pobo<\/a>,   Tammy <a href=\"#Robacker\">Robacker<\/a>,   Claire <a href=\"#Scott\">Scott<\/a>,   Lucas <a href=\"#Shepherd\">Shepherd<\/a>,   Martha <a href=\"#Silano\">Silano<\/a>,   Alex <a href=\"#Stolis\">Stolis<\/a>,   J.A. <a href=\"#Sutherland\">Sutherland<\/a>,   Susan <a href=\"#Thornton\">Thornton<\/a>,  Marvin <a href=\"#Waldman\">Waldman<\/a>, Michelle <a href=\"#Watters\">Watters<\/a>,  Laura Madeline <a href=\"#Wiseman\">Wiseman<\/a><br \/>\n<a id=\"Brockley\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr size=\"3\" color=\"gray\">\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe Poems:<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Michael Brockley<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJOHN SINGER SARGENT\u2019S <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/El_Jaleo#\/media\/File:EL_JALEO-SINGER.jpg\" target=\"\u201d_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i>EL JALEO<\/i><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI clap my hands beside the chair upon which Manuel has placed a pear. He took one bite from it before beginning to strum his new <em>jaleo de jerez<\/em> with his twin. Rosina from the islands struts on the wooden floor to the ruckus of old gods and wine. The vibrations from her heels drum the frenzy of rampaging bulls into the rhythm. She points to the men who would be her lovers. To the lovers who would be her men. The women in red toss back their chairs in triumph. Spill wine onto the floor where much wine has been welcomed. They are careless with their scarves and sheer dresses. They cry <em>El jaleo!<\/em> as the guitars ascend to dervish and devil. Even the dark woman who dresses in the feathers of ravens applauds when the music kidnaps Rosina\u2019s heart. \u00a1How her body finds a place in the blood for rhapsody! I nudge the sleeping Benito, his hands idle in his lap. His head tilted back against the wall. He snores like a risqu\u00e9 tambourine at the threshold of rapture. Rosina\u2019s arms river as her muscles flow through stone in a storm. The only light in the cantina the skirt covering her thighs as she tempests the floor. When the river flows into the delta, Rosina will be dancing with the floating guitars. And Manuel\u2019s pear will not be eaten tonight.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMichael Brockley has written poems for most of his life. His most recent publications include <em>The Flying Island<\/em> and <em>Panoplyzine<\/em>. Forthcoming poems will be found in <em>Atticus Review<\/em> and <em>Gargoyle<\/em>. <a id=\"Brown\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Jacquelyn Grant Brown<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWHAT CANCER TOOK<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDear editor,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt took time<br \/>\nto collect what\u2019s left<br \/>\nof myself\u2014<br \/>\nrealign my thoughts.<br \/>\nI have not read, or submitted<br \/>\nto your, or any other,  journal<br \/>\nin many, many publications<br \/>\nof the recent past,  something<br \/>\nI have loved.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTemporarily,<br \/>\nI lost my nerve and all<br \/>\nnotion that acceptance<br \/>\ninto journals and magazines<br \/>\ngave my life a good portion<br \/>\nof its meaning.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent: 7em;\">It took huge boobs\u2014<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nto write this.  Sincerely<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDNA<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt must have seemed the only release<br \/>\nfrom the suction of Jim Crow<br \/>\nthat had hold of him<br \/>\nlike a leach.<br \/>\nDoubts came about<br \/>\nfrom mouths full of fairytales<br \/>\nwith no happy endings<br \/>\nand dog years of left behind.<br \/>\nMother went off to the big city to sing<br \/>\nthe blues in F minor and father,<br \/>\nnot a factor, meant he needed<br \/>\nto make himself<br \/>\na man\u2014<br \/>\nuse his pubic hair as guitar strings<br \/>\nand pluck out his own<br \/>\nversion of A Change<br \/>\nGone Come.<br \/>\nBut, his history would not unhand<br \/>\nhim, DNA (daddy not around)<br \/>\nin the blood and plasma<br \/>\nraced through marrow\u2014yellow<br \/>\nand tacky<br \/>\nlike abandonment<br \/>\non the psyche.  Meanwhile, big cities<br \/>\nbeckoned boys like him with neon NUDE signs<br \/>\nabove dead end alleyways.  At eighteen,<br \/>\nhe bought a one-way ticket to a stranger\u2019s<br \/>\nHarlem apartment where he made do<br \/>\nwith gritty floor tiles and a thin blanket<br \/>\nfor a bed. Wide eyed, he was eager<br \/>\nto love anyone\u2014have anyone<br \/>\nlove him back. When I see him now, without<br \/>\nchildren to raise, aged and settled, watch him<br \/>\nand his wife tending to each other\u2019s<br \/>\nneeds, it is easier to understand,<br \/>\nbeing born with DNA,<br \/>\nhow a fatherless man could<br \/>\nfavor absence and how<br \/>\na man missing<br \/>\na mother<br \/>\nwould make a home<br \/>\nanywhere<br \/>\nhe found a vacancy.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJacquelyn Grant Brown is a writer\/poet and a long-time employee and graduate of Louisiana State University where she received a BA in English. She is a recent graduate of the Solstice Low Residency MFA Program at Pine Manor College where she earned a Master\u2019s degree in Creative Writing. You can find some of her work in <em>African American Review<\/em> and <em>Pink Panther Magazine<\/em>. She currently resides in south Louisiana. For more of Jacquelyn\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Brown\">here<\/a>.<a id=\"Cavanagh\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>David Cavanagh<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNOTHING MUCH SAD<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSpring\u2019s mess of mashed down leaves gets raked<br \/>\ninto piles, along with my dank thoughts, a heap<br \/>\nof too soon dead &#8212; mothers, fathers, brothers,<br \/>\na friend\u2019s small child. And the dailies down me<br \/>\nbad. I hear my whine, I hear the counter-whine,<br \/>\n<em>Grow Up<\/em>! I hear <em>Get On With It<\/em>. If need be, get<br \/>\nPaxiled or Cymbalta\u2019d, let a slack hand click newsy<br \/>\nlink to link, <em>Share<\/em>, even <em>Like<\/em> what you loathe.<br \/>\nAnother young black man got back-dropped by a cop;<br \/>\na train crashed and killed in Philly; two tectonic heaves<br \/>\nshook Nepal to bits; a Saudi woman was flogged<br \/>\nfor being raped; a little girl at my corner cried,<br \/>\nand her mom begged, because hungered.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThat was all yesterday and the day before.<br \/>\n<em>Whose Fault<\/em> and <em>What Now<\/em> wait like stage four<br \/>\npatients at the clinic. Even so, the sun on my neck<br \/>\nso warm and welcome, not quite yet a sizzle. I find<br \/>\nmyself edging the drive, sharp flat spade slicing<br \/>\nalong, inches at a time carving a prim disguise,<br \/>\na clean line of grass against pavement. I\u2019m mindful<br \/>\nof the sham, which makes it a little less, or is that<br \/>\nmore? Nothing much sad happens here. I just miss<br \/>\nthem all. Tulips mauve and yellow unconcerned,<br \/>\nregal by the salted road. I should be on my knees. I am.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDavid Cavanagh\u2019s most recent book of poems is <em>Straddle<\/em>, released in 2015 by Salmon Poetry of Ireland. His earlier collections include <em>Cycling in Plato\u2019s Cave<\/em>, a book of biking-related poems and photos from Fomite Press in 2014; <em>Falling Body<\/em> from Salmon Poetry in 2009, and <em>The Middleman<\/em>, also from Salmon Poetry in 2003. His poems have also appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the U.S., Canada, Ireland, and the U.K. He lives in Burlington, Vermont. <a href=\"http:\/\/dcavanagh.net\" target=\"_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/dcavanagh.net\/<\/a> <a id=\"Coolen\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Michael Coolen<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nVENUS ATTACKS MARS (to be recited on one breath)<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSo one morning I go to yoga and the temperature in the room is, like, 104 degrees and the women in class are still putting on more scarves and leggings and sweaters, and I\u2019m, like, wishing I had worn a bathing suit because it was so hot which convinces me that women ARE from Venus where the surface temperature is about 700 degrees while the temperature on Mars can get so cold I might have to wear long pants.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMichael Coolen has been published in <i>Oregon Humanities, The Gold Man Review, Clementine Poetry Journal, Synesthesia Magazine, Broken, The Poetry Quarterly, Oregon Poetry Association, the Rats Ass Review<\/i>, et al.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe is also a published composer, with works performed around the world, including at Carnegie Hall, MoMA, and the Christie Gallery in New York. For more of Michael\u2019s work go to the Love &amp; Ensuing Madness page. <a id=\"DeBellis\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Jenifer DeBellis<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLEGACY<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe woodchipper welcomes you, takes you<br \/>\ninto its mouth as a lover does who\u2019s<br \/>\nwaited too long for the other\u2019s return.<br \/>\nYour fall is poised, your eyes repentant.<br \/>\nThe ash limb you dive from trembles<br \/>\nas all but your boots pass through the chipper.<br \/>\n\u201cKill it!\u201d someone yells. \u201cKill the power.\u201d<br \/>\nI forget how to pray, how to say<br \/>\nthe right things in the proper order.<br \/>\nI should be the one flipping my red cap<br \/>\nas I meet my death. Our son shudders<br \/>\nwhen the air grows calm and I do not<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nremember to keep breathing. I don\u2019t know<br \/>\nwhat I will tell him when he is born.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMetro Detroit writer Jenifer DeBellis is <em>Pink Panther Magazine\u2019s<\/em> Executive Editor and a <em>Solstice Lit Mag<\/em> eBook editor and poetry reader. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Solstice of Pine Manor College and is a former writer-in-residence for the Meadow Brook Writing Project. JDB teaches creative and academic writing and is a workshop facilitator for Oakland University\u2019s Meadow Brook Writing Camps. Her work appears in publications such as <em>the Aurorean, AWP&#8217;s Festival Writer, the Good Men Project, Literary Orphans, Sliver of Stone<\/em>, and <em>Solstice Literary Magazine<\/em>. For more of Jenifer\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#DeBellis\">here<\/a>.<a id=\"Eastwood\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Robert Eastwood<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nGREAT WINGS BEATING STILL<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSome say Leda laid a beautiful egg,<br \/>\n&amp; when it cracked the world turned over.<br \/>\nNaked by a pond, don\u2019t ask me why, maybe<br \/>\nafter skinny-dipping, she had dangled her hand,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nidling of a hot afternoon, when a priapic god<br \/>\nturned himself into a bird, bigger than a goose,<br \/>\nwithout more than a shrug, &amp; that god-bird<br \/>\nswam in the pond with his neck curled<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nlike mortal ones do when they get randy,<br \/>\nwings flat back, tail fanned, dingy-white<br \/>\nas a Poland China belly, &amp; mist hung<br \/>\naround him in a halo, cause he was a god,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ncoming from god knows, &amp; that helped him sneak<br \/>\nup on the girl who dawdled fingers,<br \/>\nthough she must have seen wavelets lap the moss,<br \/>\nheard his big feet strum out corded ripples,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nknown, somehow, this was a fateful afternoon,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nyet she remained there, fingers tickling water, strangely<br \/>\ncharmed: like an estrus cow may turn herself<br \/>\ntoward a bull, she curled her casual arm<br \/>\n&amp; heaved that white-feathered hulk<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nupon herself. It\u2019s always bothered me whether<br \/>\ngod-birds are as mean as earthly ones<br \/>\nwhen they jump on, beak grabbing whatever<br \/>\nto hold to\u2013\u2013must have been her nape,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ndon\u2019t you suppose, not bosom, or nose?<br \/>\nYou\u2019d think it would have put her off,<br \/>\nthat big feathery thing throbbing, dripping,<br \/>\ndoing the wild thing in a sudden blow.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWith such awesomeness, why the beaky guise,<br \/>\nwhy ill-fitting nether-parts?<br \/>\nMight be a starter story, dawn of the butterfly effect,<br \/>\nwhere weird onces cause untold afters.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHE YIDDISHER CASE<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>And he rose up that night\u2026and passed over<br \/>\nthe ford Jabbock.<\/em>\tGenesis 32:22<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA week of empty deals,<br \/>\nthe blotter crescented by my heels.<br \/>\nI\u2019d stubbed my last Lucky,<br \/>\nmy bourbon, now gone empty.<br \/>\nNo picnic being a shamus<br \/>\nwhere everyone\u2019s religious.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe arrived as neons flicked on<br \/>\nat Cohen\u2019s all night delicatessen.<br \/>\nA Yiddisher in a shawl, she perched<br \/>\non my desk, tossed her bag. I shoved<br \/>\nit back said, <em>No gelt\u2013\u2013gimme the story<br \/>\nfirst.<\/em> She heard my gut growl its <em>feed me<\/em><br \/>\nshtick. <em>You got chutzpah!<\/em> Shook her stick.<br \/>\n<em>All work no eat. I like that in a private dick.<\/em><br \/>\nAsked for a finger of hooch, she cackled<br \/>\nat the dead soldier upended<br \/>\nin the corner. She saw me frown<br \/>\nand came up with the lowdown.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>Followed him that night<br \/>\nin a glowing moon. Almost white<br \/>\nthe river Jabbok, where he waded<br \/>\nthe shallows, where water murmured.<br \/>\nA nightmare\u2013\u2013a kholem, surely\u2013\u2013<br \/>\nfor Izzie tore off his clothes. His body,<br \/>\nnaked, wavered in eerie lethargy,<br \/>\nlike a wind-turned effigy.<br \/>\nThen something grabbed and twisted him,<br \/>\nlike Gorgeous Goy yanks a limb\u2013\u2013<br \/>\nyou know, the phony wrestler<br \/>\nwith pink hair. The body juggler.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAll contorted, Izzie growled,<br \/>\nat empty air he grabbed<br \/>\nand held. On a moonlit scree<br \/>\nthis spell unfolded\u2013\u2013so kakameyme.<br \/>\nGrappling zilch is pretty odd I tell you.<br \/>\nEased of the spirit, he spun into<br \/>\na klutz. I cringed, afraid he\u2019d fall<br \/>\n(yeah, I\u2019m his chief squeeze, his usual).<br \/>\nHis arms upraised, he danced like I\u2019d never<br \/>\nseen him do. Where hips in torture<br \/>\nhad been atwist, as if his heinie unsprung,<br \/>\nhe leaped now, kicked and swung.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA glistened blueness his body shone,<br \/>\nall but his\u2013\u2013you know\u2013\u2013a smoothed stone.<br \/>\nOf a sudden it came to me\u2013\u2013it\u2019s gone kaput<br \/>\nhis proper sense, all us wives and heirs, destitute.<br \/>\nHis goats too, all lost to him. Afraid, I ran,<br \/>\ntook him in my arms, prayed for sun.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNext day, he chewed locusts. The meshugener<br \/>\nclimbed a mountain and went over.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBeen years, Mr. Marlowitz.<br \/>\nFind Izzie, please, he\u2019s lost his wits .<\/em><br \/>\nShe had a twist of challah and a fig,<br \/>\nno dough for me in her thingamajig.<br \/>\nTold her I enjoyed our little smooze,<br \/>\nhelped her to the bus. Didn\u2019t quite refuse.<br \/>\nFunny how some tales rebloom<br \/>\nin dusty beds of Jerusalem.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nRobert Eastwood never saw his parents read a book, let alone buy one, so he\u2019s been catching up ever since, an obsession in its own right. His books are now in every nook and cranny, and he reads constantly. He is a retired teacher who lives in San Ramon, California. He is a graduate of California State University At Los Angeles and Saint Mary\u2019s College. His work has appeared widely, most recently in <em>The Dirty Napkin, Wild Goose Poetry Review, Full Of Crow, Legendary, Softblow, Up The Staircase Quarterly, Literary Yard, Kentucky Review, Bird\u2019s Thumb, The Hartskill Review, Spry and Loch Raven Review<\/em>. His chapbooks are <em>The Welkin Gate, Over Plainsong, Night of the Moth<\/em>, published by Small Poetry Press, and his first book of poetry <em>(Snare: Poems of Refuge &amp; Revenge)<\/em> is to be published in 2016 by Broadstone Books. He has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize.<a id=\"Epstein\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>David Epstein<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWEDDING POEM #2<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAll doubts are restrained in lace.<br \/>\nAll differences garroted by bow-ties.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIn advance of M-hour, all cheeks have tired of smiling.<br \/>\nEvery member, every guest, has a room<br \/>\nin which is shut away a clamoring ricochet:<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n\u201cHe\u2019ll be bald inside a year.\u201d<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n\u201cHer mother looks like a cannoli in pumps.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cHe was such a tender lover.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cShe owes me fifty bucks.\u201d<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWe\u2019re tourists in the city of Decorum,<br \/>\na land filled with hatchets buried<br \/>\nin shallow, well-marked graves.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWhen the last stains have been daubed off lapels,<br \/>\nWhen the roles have all been played like a vinyl record,<br \/>\nWhen the rice is clotting the sparrows\u2019 throats,<br \/>\nand the couple has boarded their flight, then<br \/>\nthe minister opens a book to record her observations:<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTime of engagement: thirteen months.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nGroom\u2019s attitude: fair, with a sarcastic grin.<br \/>\nBride\u2019s delight: full, no cracks in her armor.<br \/>\nBride\u2019s mother: restrained enthusiasm.<br \/>\nGroom\u2019s mother: open relief.<br \/>\nBest Man\u2019s toast: appropriately roasting.<br \/>\nEstimate of True Love: fair with optimism.<br \/>\nLikelihood of divorce remains fifty percent<br \/>\nno matter what.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThere are things that will be said<br \/>\nthat will never be forgiven. These will be hoarded<br \/>\nand kept dry like ammunition. At the interview<br \/>\nthe bride held back her worst peeves,<br \/>\nand the groom\u2019s mind repeated the phrase<br \/>\n\u201cstarter-wife.\u201d And what is a wedding but a wager<br \/>\nthat two people might learn to let go?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDavid Epstein learned how to work by being the \u201cscrote\u201d on a construction crew right after college. \u201cHey College Boy,\u201d they\u2019d call, and when he looked up from his Skilsaw, they\u2019d flatten him with roofing staples fired from pneumatic nailers. After a few years of that, he went to grad school anyway, bagged a Ph.D., and tried teaching, but kept going back to the hammer. He got married and stayed home with the babies. Published articles for the At-Home Dad Newsletter; poems in Poesia, Poetic Hours, The Lyric, Blue Collar Review, and Shofar. He built some small boats. Again he taught school, but the job was such deskstitution that he left it. In the summers he races small sailboats and publishes entertaining accounts of the races. He is on the board of the Hartford Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stevenspoetry.org\" target=\"_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/www.stevenspoetry.org\/<\/a>.<a id=\"Faulkner\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Sandra L. Faulkner<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBATTLE OF THE B-F GIRLS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/B-F-Girl1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/B-F-Girl1.jpg\" alt=\"B-F Girl\" width=\"1984\" height=\"1914\" class=\"align center size-full wp-image-1018\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/B-F-Girl1.jpg 1984w, https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/B-F-Girl1-300x289.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/B-F-Girl1-1024x988.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1984px) 100vw, 1984px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSandra L. Faulkner is Director of Women\u2019s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at BGSU. Her poetry appears in places such as <em>Gravel, Literary Mama<\/em>, and <em>damselfly<\/em>. She authored three chapbooks, <em>Hello Kitty Goes to College<\/em> (dancing girl press, 2012), <em>Knit Four, Make One<\/em> (Kattywompus, 2015), and <em>Postkarten aus Deutschland<\/em> (liminalities.net). Sense published her memoir in poetry, <em>Knit Four, Frog One<\/em> (2014), and a co-authored book on Writing the Personal (forthcoming). She lives in NW Ohio with her partner, their warrior girl, and a rescue mutt. For more of Sandra\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Faulkner\">here<\/a>.<a id=\"Fraser\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Adele Fraser<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAMBIGUITY<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou search for him in bars.<br \/>\nYou seek him in personal ads.<br \/>\nYou&#8217;re business-like about it.<br \/>\nYou have no time to waste on games,<br \/>\nsee no point in politely prolonging<br \/>\ntedious preambles. You prefer to cut<br \/>\nto the chase.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nEach one you find turns out eventually<br \/>\nnot to be him, but always someone else,<br \/>\nsomeone who wants things you do not have<br \/>\nand lacks the things you need.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou give up in the end. Step off the roller coaster,<br \/>\nfind your feet, and start walking<br \/>\nas far from sunsets as your legs will carry you.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou find her (or, rather, she finds you) by accident<br \/>\nand somewhat late. You tell her that you&#8217;re straight<br \/>\nand that you think she&#8217;s brave to engage with you,<br \/>\nas all you can offer her is everything and nothing.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe hasn&#8217;t a clue what you mean by the phrase,<br \/>\nand, truth be told, neither have you,<br \/>\nbut it sounds good, has a certain elegance<br \/>\nand strikes an appropriately literary note<br \/>\nof eloquent regret.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnd yet&#8230;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSeven years later, she sits smiling,<br \/>\nand writes this poem,<br \/>\nfeeling that you should have guessed<br \/>\nthat everything and nothing<br \/>\nwas exactly what she wanted.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIMAGINING ALICE IN WELLINGTONS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI was reading an article the other day,<br \/>\nin which the author did that oh-so-infuriating<br \/>\ncome-into-my-clique<br \/>\nfirst person plural crap.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou know what I mean.<br \/>\nLike that thing they do on adverts, when we can\u2019t<br \/>\nstop ourselves from screaming at the TV<br \/>\n\u2018Speak for your sodding self!\u2019<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n(Or maybe that\u2019s just me. Sorry.)<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnyway, this person was saying<br \/>\nhow we all know there\u2019s nothing less sexy<br \/>\nthan wellies. And I thought<br \/>\n\u2018You have got to be having me on!\u2019<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI can only assume that they meant to say \u2018more\u2019 \u2013<br \/>\nthere\u2019s nothing more sexy than wellies.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nEspecially thigh high ones on small women.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSo, inevitably, I start imagining Alice in wellingtons<br \/>\nand find myself coming over rather faint.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI don\u2019t know what it is about them.<br \/>\nThey have that good kind of outdoorsy vibe going on.<br \/>\nAnd, when I say the good kind, I mean the British kind,<br \/>\ngrey, wet, what the soulless call \u2018miserable\u2019<br \/>\nand the rest of us \u2018romantic\u2019 and \u2018restful\u2019.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n(Shit, I did it again, didn\u2019t I? Sorry again.)<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnyway, I think wellies and I think power.<br \/>\nReal power. Not stand-on-the-tips-of-your-toes-and-look-expensive<br \/>\nkind of power, but the kind of power that can disrupt the earth<br \/>\nand make things grow, the kind of power that knows how to<br \/>\nmake even the most obstinate of beasts go where they\u2019re led<br \/>\nwith little more than a soft word. That kind of power.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnd there\u2019s something about small women in high boots<br \/>\nof any kind. Same goes for long coats. Something about it<br \/>\nthat says presence. That says nothing-can-eclipse-me.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnd, it has to be said, my Alice is at her best<br \/>\nwhen she dominates things that could drown her:<br \/>\na trench coat, anxiety, the world.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAdele Fraser is from the UK, where she lives and writes high in the Welsh mountains (geographically speaking). Although in the early months of her career, she has already been published by a number of magazines. For more of Adele\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Fraser2\">here<\/a>.<a id=\"Friedman\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Michael Friedman<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nFOOD FOR THE HUNTER<br \/>\nfrom <em>Beasts<\/em> by Richard Wilbur<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAfter the pain and panic<br \/>\nsubside, and after the beak<br \/>\nhas opened my belly<br \/>\nI fade in the glory<br \/>\nof those quills, smeared<br \/>\nwith my blood.<br \/>\nA consecration of power<br \/>\nmy body sustains.<br \/>\nPassing through the great earth,<br \/>\nI am but a dot of mouse fur,<br \/>\n<em>safe in the owl\u2019s talon<\/em>.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMichael Wayne Friedman is an MFA candidate in the Creative Writing program at Queens University of Charlotte. He lives near Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and works as a medical writer, preparing drug regulatory and scientific documents. His poems have appeared (or are slated to appear) in <em>Syzygy Poetry Journal, Wherewithal, Yellow Chair Review, Camel Saloon, Plum Tree Tavern, East Jasmine Review, Stray Branch,<\/em> and others.<a id=\"Goldhaber\"><\/a><a href=\"#poets\"><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<\/a><a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>F. I. Goldhaber<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nGENDER BLENDING FASHION<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThose who identify as #GenderQueer<br \/>\ndo not let others define our wardrobes.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMen&#8217;s sports shirt with cloisonn\u00e9 necklace and<br \/>\nmatching earrings? Sounds sweetly alluring.<\/p>\n<p>Men&#8217;s button down shirt with pearls? Just perfect.<br \/>\nLet&#8217;s add a pleated skirt and combat boots.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nButch haircut with glittery makeup and<br \/>\ndangly earrings? Just put on a binder.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMen&#8217;s purple shorts with pink, strappy, sexy<br \/>\nsandals? Just what the evening calls for.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nFormal gown, stage makeup, full beard? Add a<br \/>\nstunning voice and you&#8217;ve a grand prize winner.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAs a reporter, editor, business writer, and marketing communications consultant, F.I. Goldhaber produced news stories, feature articles, essays, editorial columns, and reviews for newspapers, corporations, governments, and non-profits in five states. Now, her poems, short stories, novelettes, essays, and reviews appear in paper, electronic, and audio magazines, ezines, newspapers, calendars, and anthologies. In addition to paper, electronic, and audio publications, F.I. shares her words at events in Portland, Seattle, Salem, Keizer and on the radio. She appeared at venues such as Wordstock, Oregon Literary Review, galleries, coffee shops, bars, bookstores, libraries, and community colleges. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goldhaber.net\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> http:\/\/www.goldhaber.net\/<\/a> <a id=\"Gravley\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Jennifer Gravley<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOLD PEOPLE<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOld people want to kiss you, and they do. This is how you learn your lips will one day turn to paper. When you are older and can pick out and pay for lace underwear, a woman will wrap the underwear in paper like the lips of old people, just barely pink, thin enough to see shadows, shapes through, given to wrinkle. You will learn, through community educational programming, that painters sometimes apply this paper to canvas and paint over it. You will learn that something without texture can create it elsewhere\u2014but not until it is too late for you. Old people want their things wrapped in paper. You open the dresser drawers of every old person you know. You go through the cabinets they display their old dishes in in dust. Every old person has the hair of their mother in a tiny envelope. Old people want you to eat expired candy, and you do. Old people want you to remember something about them. They shape the stories they want with their lips. Your hands tear at candy papers as you chew. You chew in your dreams at night, each tooth grinding away at some other. Your teeth grind at something every old person knows\u2014it is too late for you.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nPOSSESSIONS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou have wanted to lose many things and failed: your sister, then the children and dogs of neighbors. The fever that your eyes swam in like lava for days as you combined sentences on blackboards and crawled back to your apartment to die. You have seen your father undone by hoarding, every unkindness festering into a tight foul knot in the rag rug he carries inside him. This rug is where you learned to press your sitz bones into the ground. You have packed house\u2014boarded planes\u2014every time you felt anxiety knocking. Years after each winnowing, the boxes returned, in the mail or down the ladder from your parents\u2019 attic. Your mother tapes names on the smallest of possessions, but you and your sister do not turn them over when she leaves the room. You do not want to know what death will grant you. In the end, you will be lucky to get out with your teeth.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJennifer Gravley makes her way in Columbia, Missouri. She is a writer of sentences and a watcher of bad television. Her work has recently appeared in <em>Paper Nautilus, Sugared Water<\/em>, and <em>Front Porch<\/em>, among others.<a id=\"Grey\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>John Grey<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHOW YOU FIND ME<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI must be in this room for a reason.<br \/>\nAnd it wasn&#8217;t to sit in the particular<br \/>\nchair I&#8217;m sitting in or turn on the<br \/>\nlamp or open the book that happened<br \/>\nto be on the end table to a random<br \/>\npage that, as I read, tried to convince<br \/>\nme it was a particular page.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou followed me in like<br \/>\nyou wanted something from me.<br \/>\nI looked at you like the interruption<br \/>\nyou were, like everything that<br \/>\nhappened to me was an interruption,<br \/>\neven the stuff I did myself,<br \/>\nlike entering this room at this time,<br \/>\nand plunking myself into this chair,<br \/>\nand reading the book that insists<br \/>\non being the only book like you insist on having<br \/>\nbeen there fifteen years ago in the upper<br \/>\neast side restaurant with the candles lit<br \/>\nand meal about to arrive and the nervous man<br \/>\nopposite struggling to get that proposal out.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou won&#8217;t get up to leave.<br \/>\nYou have to hear what he timidly whispers<br \/>\nto you over and over and over.<br \/>\nAnd, every moment since then,<br \/>\nyou still won\u2019t get up to leave.<br \/>\nTime&#8217;s like this chain you won&#8217;t let break.<br \/>\nOr it&#8217;s a long drawn out puzzle with<br \/>\nonly one answer&#8230;me entering this room,<br \/>\nsitting down, reaching for the book,<br \/>\nopening it, reading on from<br \/>\nwhere it&#8217;s so certain I left off.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJohn Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in <em>Steam Ticket, Tulane Review<\/em>, and <em>Kerf<\/em> with work upcoming in <em>Abbey, Common Ground Review, In\/Words<\/em>, and <em>Ship of Fools<\/em>.  <a id=\"Harrod\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Lois Marie Harrod<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNO ACCOUNTING<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe woman you\u2019ve met for years at these conferences,<br \/>\nolder now, forties, fifties, maybe sixty,<br \/>\nno longer slim or particularly attractive<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\na coif that thins the hair against her neck and brittles its red,<br \/>\nand you know she is thinking the same of you, <em>not so young,<br \/>\nforehead frocked in age spots, needs to lose some weight<\/em>\u2014<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nbut put appearance aside, you\u2019ve always enjoyed talking to her,<br \/>\nthe way she is telling you now how she felt when her first husband left,<br \/>\n<em>that horror with earthworm breath and hard-nailed toes,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nthe squamous nerd with his demands for bologna sandwiches<\/em>,<br \/>\nhis criticisms of her teeth, her clothes (which are,<br \/>\nyou would agree, dowdy by any standard, even your mom\u2019s)<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nand now she is recounting how after the divorce she flirted<br \/>\nwith the man who became her second husband,<br \/>\n<em>saw to it that he left that first wife who didn\u2019t appreciate him<\/em>,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nand he seems so stodgy sitting beside you as she goes on and on,<br \/>\nyou wonder what she saw in him thirty years ago,<br \/>\nan arthritic hung up on his Ray Bub ceramic teapots,<\/p>\n<p>though it\u2019s true she might see your own man in a similar way,<br \/>\na bald aficionado of Budapest noir mysteries.<br \/>\nOf course, you do understand what it was about your former son-in-law<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nthat led that young radiologist to seduce him, not his dreariness<br \/>\nbut readiness being all, and you think immediately of your daughter.<br \/>\nYou want to ask your conference friend<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nif she ever wondered about the ex-wife,<br \/>\nher probable pain and, yes, terror, but you don\u2019t,<br \/>\nyou know she hasn\u2019t, this is her story not yours\u2014<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nand when she begins telling of the 100 cans of mashed pumpkin<br \/>\nshe and her inexplicable choice buy every Thanksgiving<br \/>\nto pass on to the food bank and how people in the Kroger line<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nalways ask them what will they do with all those pies<br \/>\nand he launches into his annual responses (<em>You should see the turkey.<br \/>\nOur relatives are coming and half of them are vegetarians.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWe love pumpkin pat\u00e9 with graham crackers and celery. It\u2019s for sex<br \/>\nand this is the only time of the year Libby\u2019s is on sale<\/em>),<br \/>\nyou begin to see what may have attracted her.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLois Marie Harrod\u2019s 13th and 14th poetry collections  <em>Fragments from the Biography of Nemesis<\/em> and the chapbook <em>How Marlene Mae Longs for Truth)<\/em> appeared in 2013.   Her poems and stories have appeared in journals and online ezines from <em>American Poetry Review<\/em>  to <em>Zone 3<\/em>. Read more on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.loismarieharrod.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> http:\/\/www.loismarieharrod.org\/<\/a><a id=\"Hofer\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Marianna Hofer<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLOVE AND DEVOTIONS FALL TO RUINS IN YOUR HANDS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>You say you fear I\u2019ll change my mind<br \/>\nAnd I won\u2019t require you.<br \/>\n&#8211;\u201cNever My Love\u201d<br \/>\nThe Association<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nFall, or maybe spring. Either way<br \/>\na start, an end.  Let\u2019s say fall, that<br \/>\ndying season where in the Midwest<br \/>\nthe death comes carrying bright<br \/>\nshiny leaves that pile up all over,<br \/>\nthat hard rustling they make, made,<br \/>\nas you scuffed  through drifts<br \/>\nof them on a shadowy sidewalk.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNot for a first time, not for a last time,<br \/>\nyet one more boy you supposedly<br \/>\nloved, at one point or another, you<br \/>\nwould just slip away, live some part<br \/>\nof your life without him. Which<br \/>\nsounds romantic, but isn\u2019t, just easy.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNone of them ever knew, just felt,<br \/>\nafter awhile, that nagging but uneasy<br \/>\nfeeling, as if a ring they couldn\u2019t find<br \/>\nslipped off, fell into a pile of leaves<br \/>\nthey\u2019d set fire to the day before<br \/>\nwhile the smoke stung their lungs.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAn upstairs bar in the small hours,<br \/>\nbrocaded wingback chairs, coffee<br \/>\nwith cream &amp; Gran Marnier sinks<br \/>\nendlessly through a cautionary tale<br \/>\nyou ignore, like always.  You lean<br \/>\nover that black haired boy\u2019s shoulder,<br \/>\nhe looks up, his blue eyes bright, as if<br \/>\nhe knows what you will say next,<br \/>\nreplies \u201cwe won\u2019t ever marry.\u201d You<br \/>\nsmile, relieved, say \u201cperfect. yes.\u201d<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWho could blame you your justification.<br \/>\nRed wingback chairs, hands jammed<br \/>\ninto a boy\u2019s thick wool cardigan pockets,<br \/>\na sweet cakewalk, your boots heavy on<br \/>\nthe wood floor, lame excuse, yes, one<br \/>\nunmapped jam after another, a grab bag<br \/>\nof true sticky sweet perfumes, perfectly<br \/>\nfolded sweaters, bright sugar maple leaves,<br \/>\nthe iridescence staining your hands.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTALKING IN THE GREENHOUSE AS MOTHS GENTLY BRUSH AGAINST THE GLASS WALLS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA woman I know told how once she<br \/>\nloved a man who didn\u2019t really love<br \/>\nher, never wanted her to stay with him.<br \/>\nShe told me she didn\u2019t completely care,<br \/>\nand at that point still went over to his<br \/>\nplace two or three times a week. At least<br \/>\nonce a week she\u2019d stack and wash all<br \/>\nthe dishes scattered around the kitchen.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe didn\u2019t really want her to do it, an act<br \/>\nthat was too close to love for him. But<br \/>\nthe haphazard stacks of plates &amp; bowls,<br \/>\nfrying pans, silverware sprouting from<br \/>\ncups &amp; glasses like prehistoric flowers,<br \/>\nwere too much for her to ignore.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe\u2019d stand at the sink for an hour or<br \/>\nmore scrubbing, rinsing. He\u2019d sit in one<br \/>\nof the two kitchen chairs, not say much.<br \/>\nOnce, though, when she thought she was<br \/>\nalmost done, he pointed out the missed pans<br \/>\non the stove behind her in the same tone<br \/>\nof voice her mother would use on her<br \/>\nwhen, as a kid, she would wash the dishes.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSo she took to, each week, telling him<br \/>\nher family\u2019s stories. Her mother\u2019d been<br \/>\ndead maybe two years, her father nearly<br \/>\ntwenty, aunts &amp; uncles gone, cousins<br \/>\nscattered, a brother she never spoke to,<br \/>\nno home to go back to if things fell apart.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOne night as she scoured a pan, she told<br \/>\nhow her mother claimed to know she would<br \/>\nturn out to be a troubling child since she chose<br \/>\nto be born during a freak March snowstorm,<br \/>\nnearly a blizzard, her parents driving to<br \/>\nthe hospital in a wet heavy whiteout.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe next day he called, told her he\u2019d gotten<br \/>\nengaged to the woman he thought about<br \/>\neach week as she told her stories. She just<br \/>\nhung up on him, didn\u2019t see him again for<br \/>\nmonths, grew to appreciate how his wife<br \/>\nsaved her, set her free. It didn\u2019t matter if<br \/>\nhe, or anyone, heard those stories. They<br \/>\njust convinced her she indeed had once<br \/>\nbeen another person in another place.<br \/>\nNow she was here, things would be fine.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe explained how the stories became<br \/>\nlike those flowers few plant anymore\u2014<br \/>\nCalendula, Anise, Love-in-a-Mist\u2014yet<br \/>\nwhen you turn a corner, find them blooming<br \/>\nin some front yard, you promise yourself<br \/>\nseeds, plants, their beauty mesmerizing.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMarianna Hofer has Studio 13 in the gloriously haunted Jones Building in Findlay, OH. Her poems and stories appear in small magazines, and her b&amp;w photography hangs in local exhibitions and eateries. Her first book, A Memento Sent by the World, was published by Word Press in 2008.<a id=\"Jampole\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Marc Jampole<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nCUBIST JEALOUSY<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHer thighs unfold to solid rays of space<br \/>\nthat splay along a sofa climbing wall<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nrevealing dark triangulation as a thing apart,<br \/>\na thing that breathes flirtatious glints,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\ncorrugated flesh and orange sit in slouch,<br \/>\nhe takes her hand in front of everyone.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHis back is turning from my right to care,<br \/>\nthis jealous sponge that holds the phlox,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nthis sobbing sponge that drinks the red I toss<br \/>\nin shadows squaring other shadows squaring<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nsplintered memory: the day she threw a jealous fit,<br \/>\nin open window windy winter blues and grays,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nher oval breasts were on the floor against a Persian rug<br \/>\nattached by springs to shuddered nakedness.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMODERN ROMANCE<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe touched his shadow on the wall,<br \/>\nthought it was the lamp that lights<br \/>\nthe actions of the mind.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThat\u2019s when he first saw her:<br \/>\nimitating angels imitating magpies<br \/>\nimitating her imitation of herself.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe thought he could meditate on one thing<br \/>\nand from it learn about the world<br \/>\nbut he didn\u2019t even learn about the thing.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe couldn\u2019t stay still long enough<br \/>\nto alleviate the reason she kept moving.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe was imitating chariots imitating meteors<br \/>\nimitating his imitation of himself.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe had too much of what<br \/>\nyou never have enough of<br \/>\nand not enough of anything else.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe transformed himself into a book<br \/>\nand read for entertainment<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe created hundreds of thousands of selves<br \/>\nand whichever one he picked<br \/>\nshe called reality.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThey liked to dance with words<br \/>\nas much as they liked to dance with bodies\u2014<br \/>\nat times they couldn\u2019t tell the difference.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe penetrated her being<br \/>\nto keep her chaste<br \/>\nbut it only worked<br \/>\nas long as he remained inside her<br \/>\nwhere the universe revolved in emptiness.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe penetrated his being<br \/>\nto keep him honest<br \/>\nbut it only worked<br \/>\nas long as she remained inside him<br \/>\nwhere emptiness caressed the universe.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThey played the game of shifting shapes,<br \/>\nshe to warrior hacking sword against him,<br \/>\nhe to diamond necklace wrapped around<br \/>\nher neck and choking her, she to bird<br \/>\nto gulp the diamonds, he to cat to kill the bird,<br \/>\nshe to dog and he to stick and she to fire<br \/>\nand he to water, she to he and he to her,<br \/>\ninside and outside at the same time.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe travelled, uncertain of his destination\u2014<br \/>\nthe core of the sun or the heart of another.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTo become knower of self<br \/>\nhe sank lower than self.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLike nesting dolls in nesting dolls<br \/>\nshe placed her breath in her mind<br \/>\nher mind in her intellect<br \/>\nher intellect in her consciousness<br \/>\nher consciousness in her self<br \/>\nher self in the universe<br \/>\nand the universe in her breath.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSunrise liberated moon<br \/>\nfrom dark nirvana in the clouds:<br \/>\ntheir constantly coming together<br \/>\nand breaking apart, breaking<br \/>\napart and coming together.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMarc Jampole wrote <em>Music from Words<\/em>, published by Bellday Books (2007).  His poetry has appeared in <em>Evansville Review, Mississippi Review, Cortland Review, Vallum, Slant, Cutthroat, Ellipsis<\/em>, and many other journals.  Over the years, four of his poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. More than 1,500 freelance articles he has written on various topics have been published in magazines and newspapers.  Marc also writes the popular OpEdge blog, which appears on the websites of two national publications. He is on the editorial board of <em>Jewish Currents<\/em>.<a id=\"Jasek\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Vanessa Jasek<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSLICE<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nFor I rejoice<br \/>\nover small beads<br \/>\nof warm red blood<br \/>\non the white underbelly<br \/>\nof my arm.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYet, I also recoil<br \/>\nat the meaning<br \/>\nthe blood brings along<br \/>\nto the party<br \/>\nto which it was apprehensively invited.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe beads turn into a light<br \/>\nstream of warmth<br \/>\nlike a blanket that<br \/>\nwell-meaning mothers spread<br \/>\nto cover all wounds.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBack and forth<br \/>\nemotions are juggled<br \/>\nlike the flames<br \/>\nthe bearded man tosses<br \/>\nat the circus,<br \/>\nonly hotter somehow.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI\u2019m giddy at the thought<br \/>\nof mother seeing<br \/>\nthe wound I created<br \/>\nnot for her,<br \/>\nbut for what she isn\u2019t.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nVanessa Jasek is a wife, and mother of four kids. She is a student pursuing a Liberal Arts Degree after a long career in Human Resources. Vanessa is now an author who is following a new path in life, a brilliant path of words, mysteries that unravel as each new word appears on the screen. Her short stories and poems have appeared in <em>The East Fork Journal<\/em> and <em>The Rebelle Society<\/em>. She loves to read. She loves her two bulldogs. Life is good.<a id=\"Leonard\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Mary Leonard<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nUPSIDE DOWN<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNotice what happens if you turn Vermeer\u2019s<br \/>\n<em>Girl Reading a Letter<\/em> upside down.<br \/>\nDo you see the young woman\u2019s face<br \/>\nin the window pane?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDo you notice the frame of red and green,<br \/>\nor what&#8217;s absent?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDo you imagine the girl&#8217;s need to escape<br \/>\nthe thick walls, the ripe fruit?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDon&#8217;t you want to see her  tear off<br \/>\nthe stiff satin of that blue dress?<br \/>\nTo be with her lover under the moonlight?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDon&#8217;t you want to see, don&#8217;t you really want to see,<br \/>\nthe girl  turn to Vermeer insisting,  &#8220;Do something quick,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMy tight braids are digging into my still life!\u201d<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMary Leonard has published chapbooks at <em>2River, Pudding House, Antrim House Press<\/em> and <em>RedOchreLit<\/em>. Her poetry has appeared in <em>The Naugatuck Review, Hubbub, Cloudbank, The Chronogram<\/em> and most recently in <em>Red River<\/em> and <em>Ilya&#8217;s Honey<\/em>. She lives in an old school house overlooking the Rondout Creek in Kingston, NY.  Away from her own personal blackboard, she teaches writing workshops for all ages through Bard College. <a id=\"Machan\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Katharyn Howd Machan<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHIS IS NOT A POEM ABOUT SEX<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTry pickles. Better yet,<br \/>\ncucumbers, bananas, all-beef<br \/>\nhot dogs with those tight<br \/>\nlittle skins. Or how about<br \/>\ntomatoes clumsy on the vine<br \/>\nheavy to burst with juice<br \/>\nand seeds, cactus fruit<br \/>\nsweet-succulent and dripping<br \/>\npink, split to the moist heart.<br \/>\nThe recipes are endless;<br \/>\nhunger for such edibles becomes<br \/>\naddiction when unchecked.<br \/>\nAvocado, pomegranate, kiwi<br \/>\nwith its hairy cover, even<br \/>\ntiny new potatoes boiled<br \/>\nnaked in deep salt.<br \/>\nSalivating yet?<br \/>\nWe\u2019re talking food here, folks.<br \/>\nAn onion is an onion,<br \/>\nslice it how you will.<br \/>\nAnd you will.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nKatharyn Howd Machan, Professor of Writing at Ithaca College, holds degrees from the College of Saint Rose, the University of Iowa, and Northwestern University. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines; in anthologies and textbooks such as <em>The Bedford Introduction to Literature, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013, Poetry: An Introduction, Early Ripening: American Women\u2019s Poetry Now, Sound and Sense, Writing Poems, Literature: Reading and Writing the Human Experience<\/em>; and in 32 collections, most recently <em>Wild Grapes: Poems of Fox<\/em> (Finishing Line Press, 2014), <em>H<\/em> (Gribble Press, 2014\u2014national winner) ,and <em>When She\u2019s Asked to Think of Colors<\/em> (Palettes &amp; Quills Press, 2009\u2014national winner). Former director of the national Feminist Women\u2019s Writing Workshops, Inc., she edited <em>Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology<\/em> (Split Oak Press, 2012).  She appears in the spring 2015 issue of Rat\u2019s Ass Review. <a id=\"Manoukian\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Marina Manoukian<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt\u2019s easy not to think about when you\u2019re not thinking about it. But once the door cracks open and you snap awake to someone coming in at five in the morning, it\u2019s hard not to indulge. Poems don\u2019t write themselves as you get fucked. Though it\u2019d be nice to be able to write and fuck. Who knows where the mind could wander to with such distractions? Imagine the words lettered right before those electric shocks come. Writing\u2019s just like fucking. When it\u2019s good you\u2019re at once trying to escape and pull it into you ineffably. It\u2019s overwhelming and exhausting and you want to beg it to stop but each pulse leaves one craving harder and deeper. A subtle balance between letting yourself be ravaged and giving it everything\u2014bursts of energy coming and going. The need for a cigarette afterwards. I was once told that was cheesy by a nonsmoker. And of course, when you\u2019re not thinking about it, it\u2019s easy not to think about.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nII.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe question of \u201care you satisfied\u201d<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWhy does satisfaction imply a cessation of what brought one to that state? If you\u2019re satisfied with life are you done? Of course you\u2019re satisfied. That\u2019s why you immediately want more.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOne fuck, one paragraph. You gasp and brace yourself for what\u2019s to come, and you\u2019re satisfied with the results. But runaway blank space on the page teases just as much as a naked body having done its job. You want more. Who wouldn\u2019t?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMarina Manoukian is a twenty-something person milling in New York City, splitting her time between reading and writing and reading and reading. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and after four years of concentrating on concentrations, she now works in a bookstore.  Recent works may be found at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emptymirrorbooks.com\/features\/literature\/the-necessity-of-tragedy-how-what-goethe-played-with-is-still-entirely-relevant.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Empty Mirror<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/scars.tv\/dirt\/dirt122mar-apr14\/am_I_really_extinct.htm#Manoukian\" target=\"_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Down In The Dirt<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/ginoskoliteraryjournal.com\/images\/ginosko15.pdf\" target=\"_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gingko<\/a>. Look for more of her works at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marinamanoukian.wordpress.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> https:\/\/www.marinamanoukian.wordpress.com\/<\/a> <a id=\"Marcus\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>MD Marcus<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLONGING FOR A LOBOTOMY<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt\u2019s for good<br \/>\nthis time.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nEven without a jumble of blame,<br \/>\nmasquerading as well-wishes,<br \/>\ntucked beneath the empty vase<br \/>\non my kitchen table,<br \/>\na home, like a person,<br \/>\ndoesn\u2019t need physical evidence<br \/>\nto bare a permanent loss.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nDenied of goodbyes so often<br \/>\nthe sting of being caught<br \/>\nby myself,<br \/>\nagain,<br \/>\nought not to make me flinch.<br \/>\nBut desertion is a hard thing<br \/>\nto get acclimated to.<br \/>\nNothing short of a head-on collision<br \/>\ncan keep me from lingering where hopes<br \/>\nare the stuff Limbo is made of.<br \/>\nLeaning on theories,<br \/>\ninstead of familiar arms, for comfort,<br \/>\nseesawing between a place of Zen<br \/>\nand where the ego lives,<br \/>\nbetween being taught patience<br \/>\nand plotting karmic revenge,<br \/>\nprayers versus analysis\u2014<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n\u2018Cause when it says PUSH on both sides of the door,<br \/>\nyou can really swing that bitch both ways<br \/>\nand it\u2019ll still open up,<br \/>\nyou know?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe world remains big and round,<br \/>\nfull of wars and sick children.<br \/>\nThere is pollution and the problem with politicians.<br \/>\nStill, I have to constantly repeat,<br \/>\n\u201cPerspective\u201d and \u201cPerception\u201d<br \/>\nout loud<br \/>\nto remember there is any difference<br \/>\nbetween the two.<br \/>\nRationality is the speech of the bitter<br \/>\nthat says if they love you, they\u2019ll show up,<br \/>\nand prove it.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBesides, no forevers were exchanged,<br \/>\nno undying love or vows,<br \/>\nnever once sighed in warm embraces<br \/>\nwhere present tense is not an elementary lesson,<br \/>\nbut the most wonderful thing in the entire universe.<br \/>\nJust a few mixed signals,<br \/>\n\u201cI LOVE YOU\u201d<br \/>\nshouted in nightclubs over loud music,<br \/>\nwhere it echoed and got lost in darkness,<br \/>\nsettled on the floor and stuck there<br \/>\nin the cheap liquor and broken glass.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMD Marcus is a freelance writer and poet living in the past.  Recent work can be found on <a href=\" http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2014\/12\/25\/how_i_became_homeless\/\">Salon<\/a> as well as in <a href=\" http:\/\/issuu.com\/clockwisecat\/docs\/femmewise_cat_part_i?e=13963388\/11675814\"> Femmewise Cat Part 1<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calliopemagazine.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Calliope Magazine<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/rpdsociety.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Rain, Party, and Disaster Society<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.inflightlitmag.com\/issues\/issue2\/author.html?author=MD Marcus&amp;work1=he swore the sun set in my eyes%2C%0Ahis life renewed between my thighs&amp;work2=Raisinets\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">In-Flight Literary Magazine<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.roundupzine.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Round Up<\/a>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/motherhoodmaycausedrowsiness.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Monkey Star Press<\/a> anthology \u201cMotherhood May Cause Drowsiness\u201d, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/cms.reddashboard.com\/collections\/#Disorder\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Red Dashboard Publishing<\/a> anthology, \u201cdis-or-der.\u201d Please read everything she writes, follow\/like her on <a href=\"http:\/\/instagram.com\/md.marcus\" target=\"\u201d_blank\u201d\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Instagram<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MDMarcusWriter\" target=\"\u201d_blank\u201d\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/pinterest.com\/mdmarcus\/\" target=\"\u201d_blank\u201d\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pinterest<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mdmarcuswriter\" target=\"\u201d_blank\u201d\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter<\/a>, and visit her at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mdmarcus.com\" target=\"\u201d_blank\u201d\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">mdmarcus.com<\/a><a id=\"Mayo\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Tim Mayo<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTUMBLEWEED<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOnce, in Oklahoma, my ex and I drove<br \/>\nthrough the sunset watching a tumbleweed race us<br \/>\nrolling with the wind beside our car.  Sparse,<br \/>\nrootless thing, aged beyond its ties, it drifted<br \/>\nbeside us as though the Earth had fallen away.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI wanted to conjugate it: from the past beyond<br \/>\nthat present\u2013\u2013to inflect it with the future.  I wanted<br \/>\nto re-verb it, retain the untold power blowing<br \/>\nthrough the twig ball of its body, but my ex-wife<br \/>\nwished only to decline the ablative of its existence.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLater, we turned off our way, we went into the hills<br \/>\nto a green place with a lake as though the dryness<br \/>\nof our road had always been illusion, and we had<br \/>\nnever left the rooted world.  From the gateposts<br \/>\nevangelists uncrossed their arms leaning their long<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nbodies forward in welcome, and that night my wife<br \/>\nswam in their waters, performed her unusual ablutions,<br \/>\nand from deep in the wet places of her body, withdrew<br \/>\nthe twig words she had waited all day to say, their frail,<br \/>\nrootless stems sprouting new leaves, new thorns.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThen my dinner partner, a long gloved beauty,<br \/>\nup to her elbows in satin, a beauty of a certain age,<br \/>\nwhose silver hair fell in casual perfection<br \/>\nover the delicate bones of her shoulders,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nturned to me, tilting her long-stemmed glass,<br \/>\never so slightly, and fluttering her languorous lashes,<br \/>\ninterjected herself into my most private of thoughts,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>Death is the ultimate spiritual act,<br \/>\nand for such fulfillment, such sublimity,<\/em><br \/>\nmon petit bonhomme, <em>it must happen<\/em> au lit . . .<br \/>\n<em>a queen-size at the very least<\/em>, n\u2019est-ce pas?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe waited, not for my reaction, but for my answer,<br \/>\nmy clever parry to her conversational thrust,<br \/>\nfor hers was a ploy to engage me in that verbal duel<br \/>\nand favorite pastime the French are so fond of.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThe subject is never important, but the grace<br \/>\nand manner with which one addresses it are utmost:<br \/>\nthe richness of innuendo and wit, the subtle deftness<br \/>\nof all the possible linguistic twists and turns,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nand any reference to the personal is considered<br \/>\nan indiscretion of gross proportion.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI was speechless,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nwhich had also been my previous state as I<br \/>\npondered how her gown\u2019s neckline scooped away<br \/>\nfrom her collarbone, allowing me to gaze upon<br \/>\nher small, but still perfect, pear-shaped breasts.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI wondered if the rosettes of her nipples<br \/>\nhad ever suckled a child. Somehow, they seemed<br \/>\nvirginal to me, then, I wondered about death . . .<br \/>\nweren\u2019t we all virgins to its seduction?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTim Mayo lives in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA, where he works in a mental institution. His poems and reviews have appeared in <em>Narrative Magazine, Poetry International, Poet Lore, River Styx, Salamander, San Pedro River Review, Tar River Poetry, Verse Daily<\/em>, and <em>The Writer\u2019s Almanac<\/em>. His collection <em>The Kingdom of Possibilities<\/em> was published by Mayapple Press in 2009 He\u2019s a five time Pushcart Prize Nominee and has been a top finalist for the annual Paumanok Award. His work appears in the spring 2015 issue of Rat\u2019s Ass Review.<a id=\"Merchant\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Megan Merchant<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBROWN BAG<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMy mother wound is charging the credit card, throwing burnt toast<br \/>\ninto the trash, leaving fingertip notes on the steamed bathroom mirror,<br \/>\ndrawing a little bumper sticker stick-family cracking apart.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMy mother wound dismisses them with a towel, <em>tisk, tisk<\/em>. She is plump<br \/>\nwith drunk by noon, and knows the difference, by sound, of a once-used<br \/>\nbrown bag, its crinkle and tight-grip delight, its deft on the stairs <em>thud<\/em>,<br \/>\nkey, like wiry bird claws, scraping around the lock.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMy mother wound knows the red-grain angle of bricks at the drive-thru,<br \/>\nthe way a sheer sleeve billows like a flag from the elbow as it\u2019s handing<br \/>\nover a cup of silver coins.  She is always forgetting the eggs and stamps.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMy mother wound made a yellow lump cake, speaks the language<br \/>\nof the screen door, the <em>thwack<\/em> of an approaching storm, the warm,<br \/>\nthree o\u2019clock patch of day on the carpet, iridescent dust in a float of light.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe has learned how to tuck and roll the lip of the bag to stop<br \/>\nan hour of thin-blood, how to place it over both nose and mouth<br \/>\nwhen a heart starts to twit, anxious as hummingbird wings,<br \/>\nknows that if it\u2019s worn enough, the skin will be soft and the grip<br \/>\nwill most likely slip.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nC-SECTION<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSomeone was clipping the<br \/>\ntalcum trees,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nor it was snow, or a dust carnival<br \/>\ndappled with light,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nor stacks of charred past-due notices<br \/>\nfleecing the dark.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSomeone was sticking a line into my vein,<br \/>\nslow honey and saxophone waves,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nvelvet ladybugs beading my wrist.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSomeone said, <em>it\u2019s time<\/em>, and the wheels<br \/>\nrushed under the antiseptic moon,<br \/>\ncluster of pronged stars.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnd the man with a cotton mouth<br \/>\ntied my wrists to the bed with ribbons he\u2019d saved<br \/>\nfrom my wedding,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nflashed a blade<br \/>\nclose to the heartbeat that was lazing<br \/>\nunder the drum<br \/>\nof stretched skin and nodded.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMy grandfather coughed from the corner<br \/>\nof the room, asked if he\u2019d take a nickel for the saw,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nwinked as the blade and bleeps sharpened into a cry.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWASHING THE RIVER HOME<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWe sat as a group,<br \/>\nlegs crossed,<br \/>\nwashed clean by the ring of the singing bowl and puffs of incense.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWe chanted and leaked,<br \/>\nspoke to the village in each other<br \/>\nas if charming some other-worldly place by a river, washing clothes,<br \/>\ncarrying pots to boil clean.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSomeone said fall is the season of mother-wounds and fettle,<br \/>\nlet the coming cold divine the seams in our sadness that have peeked wide,<br \/>\nthe wind will re-stitch them.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWe called each other by new names\u2014some clay, some ash,<br \/>\nand kissed the air soaking through the door that smelled of fur and home,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nlet it rest on our lips<br \/>\nas <em>want<\/em> once did, asking again to be pressed and wet.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMegan Merchant\u2019s poems have most recently appeared in publications including <em>Red Paint Hill, Rat\u2019s Ass Review, Mothers Always Write, Crack the Spine<\/em>, and <em>First Literary Review East<\/em>. Her book, \u201cThe Dark\u2019s Humming\u201d was the winner of the 2105 Lyrebird Prize (Glass Lyre Press, 2017). She is also the author of <em>Translucent, sealed.<\/em> (Dancing Girl Press, 2015), <em>In the Rooms of a Tiny House<\/em> (ELJ Publications, October 2016), and <em>Gravel Ghosts<\/em> (Glass Lyre Press, Spring 2016). She has a children\u2019s book forthcoming through Philomel Books. <a id=\"Mueller\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Leah Mueller<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMIDWEST GOTHIC<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou&#8217;re gone now-<br \/>\nyour bedroom rented<br \/>\nto somebody else, but when<br \/>\nI think of August, 2009<br \/>\nin Michigan, the one hot weekend<br \/>\nof an otherwise cold summer,<br \/>\nI keep believing you must still<br \/>\nbe there, and all I need to do<br \/>\nis drive up in my Toyota,<br \/>\nclimb those steep steps<br \/>\nto your second floor apartment<br \/>\nand find you with half<br \/>\nof your face unshaven,<br \/>\na bottle of wine in the kitchen,<br \/>\nyour massive pile of records<br \/>\nand your guitar on the bed.<br \/>\nWhat happened<br \/>\nto those sunglasses you wore<br \/>\non a windy fall afternoon<br \/>\nwhile I waited on the porch,<br \/>\nthe ones you removed<br \/>\nso you could see me better,<br \/>\nthough you did not wish to see me<br \/>\nat all? I brought wine<br \/>\nand drank the entire bottle,<br \/>\nbut that was usually your job.<br \/>\nWe promised to wait six months<br \/>\nbefore speaking again,<br \/>\nand we lasted five, each month<br \/>\ncorroded by ache<br \/>\nfor fingers and tongue,<br \/>\nbut not the nausea that came with it.<br \/>\nThat nausea<br \/>\nwas never far away.<br \/>\nMaking love<br \/>\ndespite ignored texts<br \/>\nfrom other women, both of us<br \/>\navoiding explanation by burying<br \/>\nourselves inside each other,<br \/>\nyour records on auto-repeat<br \/>\nwith jazz scores that vanished<br \/>\nwhen we finally slept.<br \/>\nNow you sleep in a house<br \/>\nwith filthy crucifixes,<br \/>\ngrim Jesus ignoring pornography<br \/>\nand diabetes, and your uncle<br \/>\nwears gloves to protect from dirt<br \/>\nwhile masturbating in the closet.<br \/>\nYour own bedroom is<br \/>\nin the back, near the bathroom,<br \/>\nwith its cheap body soaps<br \/>\nand a mildewed curtain<br \/>\nthat shields your body from view.<br \/>\nYour eyes and fingers eagerly seek<br \/>\nmy face on the tiled wall.<br \/>\nYou always did like to hide,<br \/>\nbut I wonder what you did<br \/>\nwith that other person<br \/>\nwho looked exactly like you<br \/>\nand had your voice and hands<br \/>\nand was crueler,<br \/>\nbut much more thrilling.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLeah Mueller is a writer who resides in western Washington. Her work has been published in <em>Cultured Vultures, Origins Journal, Quail Bell, Typoetic, Talking Soup, Silver Birch Press, Semaphore, MaDCap, The Rain, Party<\/em>, and <em>Disaster Society<\/em>, and many others. Leah&#8217;s chapbook, <em>Queen of Dorksville<\/em> was published in 2012 by Crisis Chronicles Press. Leah&#8217;s new book of poetry and prose, entitled <em>Allergic to Everything<\/em> was recently published by Writing Knights Press. Her book of humorous erotic short stories entitled &#8216;Underside of the Snake&#8217; was published in November 2015 by Red Ferret Press. Leah was a featured reader and poet in July 2015 at the New York Poetry Festival, and also at the Death Rattle Poetry Festival in Idaho in October, 2015. She enjoys sunflowers, lucid dreaming, and anything water-related.<a id=\"Nicoletti\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Joey Nicoletti<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nGEOGRAPHY LESSON<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMr. Duffy, my seventh grade<br \/>\nsocial studies teacher who wore<br \/>\nsunglasses in class, thought that knowing<br \/>\nhow to fold a map correctly was as important<br \/>\nas knowing how to read one, because it demonstrated<br \/>\nattention to detail, that <em>nothing big happens<br \/>\nwithout equal attention to small matters<\/em>,<br \/>\nwas how he put it.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSo using a map of Rome as an example,<br \/>\nhe folded it behind his back<br \/>\nin thirty seconds. Then he told the class<br \/>\nto take out our maps<br \/>\nof New York. We had one minute<br \/>\nto put our home state<br \/>\nin its place. Our sighs and groans<br \/>\nticked in the clock, nailed on the wall.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThree people were successful, including<br \/>\nmy friend David, who asked<br \/>\nif he could go to the bathroom.<br \/>\n<em>Sure<\/em>, Mr. Duffy said. <em>As long as it\u2019s not<br \/>\nhere<\/em>. David walked out of the classroom<br \/>\nwith two magic markers sticking out<br \/>\nof his partially unzipped fly. Lovely<br \/>\nLisa Peck, who sat next to me, laughed so hard<br \/>\nshe spat out her gum.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHer wad of Spearmint Trident<br \/>\nengulfed my map\u2019s Syracuse.<br \/>\nVinnie Michaels offered Lovely Lisa<br \/>\nanother piece of gum: Grape Bubble<br \/>\nYum. Mr. Duffy flashed a smile<br \/>\nin spite of himself, and took out<br \/>\nanother map from his desk.<br \/>\n<em>This one\u2019s closer to my hometown. Now watch<\/em>,<br \/>\nhe said, holding and folding North Dakota in his hands,<br \/>\neyes closed, Fargo the first city to go.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJoey Nicoletti&#8217;s most recent book is <em>Reverse Graffiti<\/em> (Bordighera, 2015). His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has been published in various journals, zines, and anthologies. He lives in Western New York, where he teaches Creative Writing at SUNY Buffalo State College. Hit him up on his blog: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.balldurham.tumblr.com\" target=\"_blank&quot;\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/www.balldurham.tumblr.com\/<\/a><a id=\"Pobo\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Kenneth Pobo<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIN MICAH I WATCH A LOT OF BETTE DAVIS MOVIES<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n1<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n1949.  In <em>Beyond The Forest<\/em>, Rosa Moline says if she doesn\u2019t get out of that town, she\u2019ll die. Burn that town down, burn it so even the ashes fly away, make it so no one even remembers such a town was there. That\u2019s what I feel in Micah. Even when redbuds bloom. Stunted, our gray houses never bloom. If they could bloom, the flowers would be pus-filled devils.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n1942. In <em>In This Our Life<\/em>, spoiled Stanley, yes, that\u2019s her name, makes a mess of other people\u2019s lives (a tablespoon of incest with her uncle). I\u2019m called rotten too. And bitch. And fag. And cocksucker. If you don\u2019t eat dinner at 6:00pm, people think \u201cHe\u2019s odd.\u201d  I\u2019m no saint. I\u2019m the bad boy, the bad girl, the glassblower\u2019s glass, fragile yet radioactive.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n1962.  In <em>Whatever Happened To Baby Jane<\/em>, Jane Hudson is so made up you can\u2019t see any real skin. In Micah we all wear heavy makeup. Our sins are the mascara on our soul\u2019s face. You are a gang plank. The many people who you despise must walk until they drop down into a shark-infested ocean.  You laugh hysterically, call the liquor store, add another layer of paint.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n2<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSome go to church and get by, shop at Wal-Mart. Some are so despairing that their one life jacket, \u201ctomorrow,\u201d is too torn to keep them afloat. Me, I watch Bette Davis films. I know them line by line. When Micah turns over in its sleep, I kiss its seeringly hot cheeks, catch on fire. I live in fire. One step closer\u2014and I\u2019ll burn you.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nKenneth Pobo has a new book out from Blue Light Press called <i>Bend Of Quiet<\/i>. His work has appeared in: <i>Mudfish, Nimrod, Profane, The Queer South Anthology<\/i> (Sibling Rivalry Press), and elsewhere. His work appears in the spring 2015 issue of Rat\u2019s Ass Review. He loves 60s music, often the flops. And dahlias, madness on a stem. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KenPobo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter@KenPobo<\/a> <a id=\"Robacker\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Tammy Robacker<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTHE CRUSHING OF GILES COREY<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAt first, in the empty field<br \/>\nPressed by one lone stone<br \/>\nI feel nothing<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA second, third and fourth<br \/>\nMostly nothing,<br \/>\nSave the chiseled man-<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJaw of vanity<br \/>\nGrinding over<br \/>\nMy land, my wives, my slaves<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI am unfraid<br \/>\nI call out to the crowd,<br \/>\nMore Weight!<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMore Weight!<br \/>\nAnd fist up<br \/>\nThese old farm hands<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTo take another stone\u2019s<br \/>\nStand on my chest<br \/>\nMy first wife Margaret<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nShe walks the aisle to me again<br \/>\nThen another stone<br \/>\nMy Mary arrives<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThose first and second wives;<br \/>\nStones so solid and gray<br \/>\nAgain, they wed me \u2014<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThen, Martha<br \/>\nMy final witch-bride;<br \/>\nShe does not forgive<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBut presses darkness down<br \/>\nOn my lungs, a weight<br \/>\nHeld there, I cannot help<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBut breathe her all the way in:<br \/>\nHearth-smoke and lavender<br \/>\nCracking husband rib<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBURN BARREL<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWild dogs are taking over this place. Their horns play Dixie. As if. Meanwhile the men are mean. Once I watched my dad skin a pregnant here. You grew up driving trucks hare. Trucks sweet with hemis and chassis. Words in machine parts. That language is lost on me. Brian something. I can\u2019t remember his last name. We drank Bacardi by the bottle in the cab of my Cabriolet. Then the hickeys. Glug. Glug. Simply the thirsty, simple boys. The Scotts. The Robs. The Mikes. Sometimes they come running back when you call. Sometimes they don\u2019t.  Love is a bitch. You say you listen to metal. Let me guess. The Very Beast of Dio or Ozzy\u2019s Bark at the Moon? They hang in packs. I\u2019m not sure what a crankshaft seems like. Breed symptoms include manufactured porch, muddy lawn, muscle car on blocks. My dad and his beagle could run a rabbit in the woods all day long. Relentlessly, my mom sliced onions and boiled water in a pot for stew on the old stove. You pace the kitchen waiting around. The air here suffocates. Always something horrible burning out back.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTammy Robacker won the 2016 Keystone Chapbook Prize for her manuscript, &#8220;R&#8221;. Her second poetry book &#8220;Villain Songs&#8221; is forthcoming with ELJ Publications in 2016. Tammy published her first collection of poetry, <em>The Vicissitudes<\/em>, in 2009 (Pearle Publications). Tammy&#8217;s poetry has appeared in <em>Menacing Hedge, Chiron Review, VoiceCatcher, Duende, So to Speak, Crab Creek Review, WomenArts<\/em>, and <em>Up the Staircase Quarterly<\/em>. Currently enrolled in the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program in Creative Writing at Pacific Lutheran University, Tammy lives in Oregon.<a id=\"Scott\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Claire Scott<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSTAR FAR<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYesterday I crept into the back of Your church<br \/>\nLike the goddamn thief I am<br \/>\nMy backpack stuffed with watches and wallets<br \/>\nMy soul wasting away<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>May the Lord bless you and keep you<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHidden in the dusk of the furthest pew<br \/>\nBeyond the reach of wafting incense<br \/>\nBeyond the whisper of prayer<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>May the Lord make his face shine upon you<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNo longer able to sip the wine of Your blood<br \/>\nOr sense Your wafer on my tongue<br \/>\nMelting mercy into my burned-out body<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>May the Lord lift up his countenance<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNo longer able to sing familiar hymns<br \/>\nStunted and strangled in my throat<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>And give you peace<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nStar far from the blessings of<br \/>\nAmazing Grace<br \/>\nStar far from the Mighty Fortress<br \/>\nThat is You<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>This day and forever more<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA sinner adrift in back alleys<br \/>\nOf blow jobs and syringes<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA sinner conning, seducing<br \/>\nTo score the blessing of cocaine<br \/>\n<em>sweet Jesus<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAn sinner stealing quarters<br \/>\nFrom the collection plate<br \/>\nRight now<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnd yet<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI see signs of You everywhere<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>A blind woman tap taps<br \/>\nTo buy spring lilac<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>Finches flash gold<br \/>\nIn Juniper trees<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>A child on her mother\u2019s lap<br \/>\nWrapped in a lullaby<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThere is nothing but<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nO Lord bless<br \/>\nMy tarnished soul<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI am so tired<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>Amen<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nClaire Scott is an award winning poet who has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize (2013 and 2014).  She was also a semi-finalist for both the 2014 Pangaea Prize and the 2014 Atlantis Award. Claire was the grand prize winner of The Maine Review\u2019s 2015 White Pine Writing Contest. Her first book of poetry, <em>Waiting to be Called<\/em>, was recently published by IF SF Publishing.<a id=\"Shepherd\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Lucas Shepherd<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n\u201c.223\u201d<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAt the age of four I was under strict orders to draw only in coloring books full of brawny T-rex and connect-the-dot brontosaurs. Do not draw in books for big people, said my parents.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAt the age of five I was punished for kissing a girl behind the red brick building. I do not remember her name. Keep your lips off the women, said my dad. For now.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAt the age of six I was told never to use violence in school, even if Cory stuck his wet index finger deep into my ear canal. Do not hurt your brothers, said mom and dad. Lift them up.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIn college I object to my teacher when he tells his students to scribble notes in textbook margins. Do not draw in books, I tell him. He says What are you, four? Cue classroom laughter.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWhen I get married in January, two decades later on a deep evening wrapped in russet-colored scenes, the reverend says You may now kiss your wife. I look to the pews, where my dad sits in his only suit jacket, a royal blue, for confirmation. He nods.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAt the gun range Sergeant Kennedy says Aim for center mass. The targets look like silhouettes of desk clocks as .223\u2019s slice through the cardboard, high noon and midnight. Sergeant Kennedy smiles and through my plugged ears I hear him say Tear \u2019em down, brother. Tear them all down.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLucas Shepherd is an MFA student at the University of New Mexico.  He has published photography in <em>The Atlantic<\/em> and fiction or creative non-fiction in  <em>Colere, Rockhurst Review, Cedar Valley Divide, Sliver of Stone<\/em>, and the <em>Wilderness Interface Zone<\/em>.<a id=\"Silano\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Martha Silano<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWHAT I NEED<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nis a spoonful of chunky salsa, a piggy bank giving birth<br \/>\nto the next big thing. What I need is to turn the brown glass<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nof this Coors Light bottle into a story that ends in a motel lobby<br \/>\nwhere a fistfight\u2019s as likely as a shattered Plexiglas wall. Ring,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nring, ring, it\u2019s two am, and just like Duchamp said, <em>language<br \/>\nis no damn good<\/em>, even when a pink Princess touchtone belts out<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nits best Lionel Richie (<em>Hello?<\/em>) It\u2019s hard to keep your eye<br \/>\non the contour lines, especially when Sisyphus insists<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nthe future is an in-limbo cashmere coat, en route<br \/>\nto a non-existent town, that there\u2019s no such thing<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nas superficial weeping. Still, your sweet Cecily of a sister\u2019s<br \/>\na pillar of Liberty dimes, her lover a blue darner of a guy,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nthough fuck all, he\u2019s stitching shit-storms from here<br \/>\nto the caves of Niaux. All I need, she tells you, is a tire<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nwith just enough air,  one lone poppy in a gray abyss.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMYSTERIES OF THE ALMIGHTY, OF THE FRIDGE<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>Two men shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&#8211;Matthew 24:40-41<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTwo appliance bulbs will be nestled on a shelf at Lowe\u2019s.<br \/>\nOne shall be taken, and so shall the other. Together<br \/>\nthey will illume the elegant eggplants, the dour flax.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nTwo burnt-out bulbs shall grind in their sockets,<br \/>\none bulb to the other: <em>wouldn\u2019t it be nice<br \/>\nto be jacketed, like potatoes?<\/em> Sockets shaking<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nin the cold while their owners pass through<br \/>\ngrabbing milk and yogurt, ham and bread.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nOne muffin shall be taken; one shall be left.<br \/>\nOne rapture shall occur on one random day,<br \/>\nsay, October 21, 2011,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\none stalk of wheat removed from its chaff,<br \/>\none stalk fully chaffed, heading up past<br \/>\ncondenser coils toward God\u2019s blustery abode.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMartha Silano is the author of four books of poetry, including <em>The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception<\/em>, winner of the 2010 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, and <em>Reckless Lovely<\/em> (Saturnalia Books 2014). She also co-edited, with Kelli Russell Agodon, <em>The Daily Poet: Day-By-Day Prompts For Your Writing Practice<\/em> (Two Sylvias Press 2013). Martha\u2019s poems have appeared in <em>Paris Review, Poetry, American Poetry Review<\/em>, and <em>North American Review<\/em>, where she received the 2014 James Hearst Poetry Prize, as well as in many anthologies, including <em>American Poetry: The Next Generation<\/em> and <em>The Best American Poetry 2009<\/em>. Martha edits <em>Crab Creek Review<\/em>, curates Beacon Bards, a monthly poetry reading series in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle, and teaches at Bellevue College. <a id=\"Stolis\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Alex Stolis<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nPERSPECTIVES ON A CRIME SCENE<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>Middle aged couple having an argument [Her]<\/em>.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThis is what it feels like to be alive. He\u2019s no idea. It was Tom Waits<br \/>\nsing\/talking. She\u2019s an orphan with a flair for the dramatic. It\u2019s not<br \/>\nimportant. I\u2019m not important. I need to be rocked to sleep, tied up<br \/>\nand down; my mind is fire unbound. You\u2019ll find the truth, not here.<br \/>\nLast time he looked at me, last time he cared, it was about the boys<br \/>\ncollege. Had to be Ivy, a hard-knock history of tradition. Let me tell<br \/>\nyou the scene. I know it by heart. She\u2019s dead wrong, she was craved<br \/>\nand coveted; drew that chalk outline around him.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>Bus Driver<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt was Charlie Parker. Yardbird Suite. They\u2019ve no idea who<br \/>\nhe is.  Everything should still be green but it\u2019s turned early<br \/>\nfall the birds gone for good. I\u2019m not sorry, everything\u2019s got<br \/>\nits end.  What isn\u2019t rubbed smooth by time, by weather, by<br \/>\nregret and second-guesses. He knew better. She\u2019s bad news<br \/>\nfrom nowhere. No innocent flower, no naive little girl. Stone<br \/>\nkiller that one. Together they looked like some noir tableau,<br \/>\na Hopper painting. When he got the drop on her she looked<br \/>\nstraight-edged, full of sin; ready to burn him to the ground.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>Man who stopped to light a cigarette<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI want to be laid in a field of green. Full suit of clothes, rose<br \/>\nin my lapel, white. Rose argent white. There will be clouds<br \/>\nonly a hint of rain, my wife will cry stoically. The same kind<br \/>\nof day as today; languid, uncertain of its own destiny. It was<br \/>\nnot violent. No guns, no knives. No fists. The girl didn\u2019t run<br \/>\nshe was pushed.  I\u2019m stalled in flight, left alone and unalive,<br \/>\nI could be the last Plantagenet and she would never want me.<br \/>\nShe\u2019s urban Cinderella before the ball, waiting for her Prince<br \/>\nof Nothing.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<em>Eyewitness #2<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt was bright, for a moment the sun hid behind the bank building,<br \/>\na U-Haul truck honked at a bike who cut in front of him. The bum<br \/>\nover there looked, smiled at her as if he knew she was frightened<br \/>\nand when the knife\u2019s pulled out everyone froze. She was excited<br \/>\nher boyfriend\/lover\/confidant\/partner was cocky; the smooth blue<br \/>\nof his expectations met her honey brown skin. It exploded in a flash<br \/>\nthe sky went dark to keep their secret. Traffic slowed, sirens blared<br \/>\nand the street cooled down. She cupped her hands around the flame<br \/>\nas he lit a cigarette; disappeared under a crush of smoke.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAlex lives in Minneapolis. <a id=\"Sutherland\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>J. A. Sutherland<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLOVED AND LOST<br \/>\n<em>i.m. Wilfrid Treasure<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIf you could spend an hour on a bench<br \/>\nwith anyone living or dead, who would it be? <\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI began to notice benches when a friend<br \/>\nposted a status on her Facebook page.<br \/>\n\u2018If you could spend an hour on a bench<br \/>\nwith anyone, who would it be?\u2019 I replied,<br \/>\n\u2018Well you, of course.\u2019 I proceeded to send<br \/>\nher pictures of specimens: contenders;<br \/>\nbenches rotted by rain, warped by winter,<br \/>\nsunned in spring, tatty, peeling, august,<br \/>\npainted pink, tarnished, or red with rust.<br \/>\nUnfortunately, she left our beautiful city<br \/>\nbefore I had the opportunity to share<br \/>\nthat precious hour with her; drinking from<br \/>\nour flask of tea, putting the world to rights.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWandering through the Botanic Gardens,<br \/>\nthis memorial bench catches my sight\u2026<br \/>\nI read \u201cBeloved\u201d on the inscription.<br \/>\nThen almost without closer inspection<br \/>\nI see the name of someone I knew well.<br \/>\nFellow musician, poet, playwright\u2026 friend:<br \/>\nyou died too suddenly and much too young.<br \/>\nGuilty that we\u2019d fallen out of touch,<br \/>\nI sit on your bench, alone, feeling<br \/>\nlike a trespasser, remembering<br \/>\nrecitals and concerts we used to give \u2013<br \/>\nI sang Lieder and English Song; your sensitive<br \/>\npiano accompanied my subtle baritone.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA robin joins me on the bench, and with<br \/>\na high-pitched \u2018Cheep! Cheep!\u2019 attempts<br \/>\nto claim its territory with a delicate staccato.<br \/>\nI greet the bird, enamoured with its sweet tone.<br \/>\nA recollection comes tweeting back to me;<br \/>\nhow on another bench, when we performed,<br \/>\na tiny, piping voice would sing along<br \/>\nto my rendition of the Songs of Travel.<br \/>\nAs Robin hops onto the floor, I stand<br \/>\nmy ground and, letting this thought unravel,<br \/>\nfigure I belong here on this bench.<br \/>\nYou who were belov\u00e9d never saw<br \/>\nyour daughter into adulthood. What\u2019s more,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nbeing denied the right to call yourself<br \/>\nher father broke your spirit \u2013 and your heart.<br \/>\nI share with you a sense of grief and loss.<br \/>\nBut justice isn\u2019t based on what is fair;<br \/>\nless so on fact and even less, on truth.<br \/>\nYou were a parent to the child you bore.<br \/>\nImperfect \u2013 yes \u2013 perhaps, but aren\u2019t we all?<br \/>\n<em>My<\/em> child exists, although I also never saw<br \/>\nhim grow. Like you, I only loved too much,<br \/>\nand seeing love not lost but stolen was a wrench<br \/>\nthat licenses the reason for this bench.<br \/>\nI sit here, contemplating for an hour<br \/>\na man who showed how love can overpower.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJ. A. Sutherland is an emerging writer, based in Scotland, performing frequently on the Edinburgh spoken-word scene. For three consecutive years Sutherland received Special Merit in the Scottish National Galleries <i>Inspired? Get Writing!<\/i> competition. Using artifacts, visual art, and photography for inspiration, Sutherland has produced three limited-edition, hand-stitched art-books:<em>Walking on the Water (poetry)<\/em>, <em>26 Treasures (sestudes)<\/em>, and <em>Charlotte &amp; The Charlatan \u2013 and other Cautionary tales<\/em> (flash-fiction).<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBesides poetry, J. A. Sutherland has had short stories published, and writes drama for theatre, radio and spoken-word performance, and regularly blogs on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.throughtheturretwindow.blogspot.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> http:\/\/www.throughtheturretwindow.blogspot.com\/<\/a> <a id=\"Thornton\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Susan Thornton<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI MET A TRAVELER<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI met a traveler from an antique land who said:<br \/>\nYou guys just don\u2019t get it, do you?<br \/>\nWhen he stumbled into our village,<br \/>\nhigh on heroin, on fear, on his own stupid ideas of<br \/>\nmanhood, I recognized him right away.<br \/>\nWe had met at Ypres. And before that at<br \/>\nGettysburg. And before that on the Ohio Border in the<br \/>\nbadly misnamed French and Indian wars.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe saw me. But did he know? I remembered that I was the Jerry<br \/>\nwho got him with a hand grenade in the clouds of poison gas on that<br \/>\nTuesday in May and I remembered he was the Yank who put<br \/>\na bayonet in my throat on the Second day of the Battle for Little<br \/>\nRound top and then I remembered his cabin on the<br \/>\nOhio River and going for him with a<br \/>\ntomahawk just after my braves with their painted faces<br \/>\nstormed his wife and daughter and on and on it went<br \/>\nback and back and back<br \/>\nfor generations yet untold.<br \/>\nAnd so that night I didn\u2019t move as he stepped into the<br \/>\nfire light where I was drying fish, the hearth<br \/>\nwhere my father was teaching my little boy<br \/>\nto read, the fire light where two nights before the Viet Cong<br \/>\nhad rested from their tunnel digging and enjoyed my cooking.<br \/>\nI was a woman at that time at home in my village, the able<br \/>\nbodied men all being away to fight the war of liberation<br \/>\nagainst the American invaders.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI saw him and I knew. I had my<br \/>\ncooking knife and I could have put it in the hollow of his<br \/>\nthroat but then it would have started all again and I just<br \/>\nwanted off of that wheel and so I sat there, staring into his eyes.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nAnd the M16 came up and he and his men killed us all. Later they lied<br \/>\nabout it to the press. It was one of the few occasions that got what<br \/>\nis called Press Attention. He was stoned and we were the \u201cenemy,\u201d<br \/>\nalthough that night we had no weapons: our only weapon was the food<br \/>\nwe had fed to our neighbors when they asked.<br \/>\nBut the Americans killed us all and later they lied about it.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSometimes I visit him in his sleep. He lives in Hagerstown, Maryland and<br \/>\ndoesn\u2019t remember that the reason he likes to be by the river is that<br \/>\nit resembles that part of the Ohio where he once had a homestead<br \/>\nand grew potatoes and cabbages and put up his own sauerkraut<br \/>\nby the barrel and had planted five hundred<br \/>\napple trees. Now he\u2019s a baker in an organic restaurant, obsessed<br \/>\nby the purity of the ingredients with which he cooks.<br \/>\nHe\u2019s sixty-eight, balding, with a whiskey cough and a bum<br \/>\nknee from a rugby injury he got when he returned to the States.<br \/>\nHe works nights and weekends, shifting his weight<br \/>\nto favor his bad leg, standing on the tile floor in his<br \/>\nAdidas sneakers, slicing the peaches for pie, pounding and<br \/>\nmolding the sourdough, pushing himself with burning eyes<br \/>\nbecause he\u2019s afraid of the dark, afraid<br \/>\nof what he will dream.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIn his nightmares he never gets it right.<br \/>\nHe recalls my face and then wakes himself shouting and sweating before the dream<br \/>\neven gets to the part where he activates the incredible killing machine<br \/>\ncalled an M-16. He\u2019s afraid of the look on my face.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nHe still doesn\u2019t understand it. Even though he\u2019s revisited it often, often, often.<br \/>\nIt wasn\u2019t fear, that look, it wasn\u2019t horror. It wasn\u2019t even grief for the loss of my<br \/>\nvillage, my father, my son, though we all died that night and I<br \/>\nknew we were all going to die. It was acceptance. It was a prayer<br \/>\nfor peace. It was, dare I say it, Love. Love of a kind<br \/>\nhe has not found since in this his life, search<br \/>\nthough he can, forage though he may, suffer though he will.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSusan Thornton&#8217;s memoir, <em>On Broken Glass: Loving and Losing John Gardner<\/em>, was published in 2000 by Carroll &amp; Graf, New York. Her short fiction has appeared in <em>The Seattle Review, the Best of Puerto Del Sol, The Literary Review<\/em> (2015) and <em>Dark Fire Fiction<\/em> (2014, forthcoming 2015). She has received fiction fellowships from the Massachusetts and the Pennsylvania Councils on the Arts. <a id=\"Waldman\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Marvin Waldman<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nA WAKE OF SORTS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt\u2019s time to say goodbye to my penis<br \/>\nCiao bambino!<br \/>\nShalom shlong!<br \/>\nWe\u2019ve been through<br \/>\na lot together<br \/>\nso it\u2019s hard, you know,<br \/>\nbut enough is enough.<br \/>\nEnough inexplicable excitations. Remember<br \/>\nArlene Applebaum?<br \/>\nEnough of not being able to stand up because<br \/>\nit is.<br \/>\nEnough worrying if it will.<br \/>\nEnough itching<br \/>\nwhen scratching<br \/>\nis out of the question.<br \/>\nEnough of it being the measure<br \/>\nof your man,<br \/>\nthe shortener of your attention span,<br \/>\nthe lengths to which<br \/>\nyou go.<br \/>\nEnough of it filling a void<br \/>\nwhich can never be filled.<br \/>\nEnough of it being turned down<br \/>\nbecause it\u2019s 3AM, she says, and<br \/>\nwe just did it yesterday and you were nasty<br \/>\nto me last week when we had dinner with the Mirskys.<br \/>\nEnough of it refusing to do<br \/>\nwhat it once could do<br \/>\nor at least what you\u2019d like to think it once could do.<br \/>\nAnd enough of it proving that just like<br \/>\nyour father\u2019s,<br \/>\nit can make babies that grow<br \/>\nto break your heart.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMarvin Waldman, a New Yorker, is a veteran advertising creative director who for the last ten years has concentrated mainly on not-for-profits, with the occasional corporate client to keep the bills paid.  He has had stories published on and offline and a ten minute play he wrote was produced and shown in libraries around Long Island. <a id=\"Watters\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Michelle Watters<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nBASTARD MUTT<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt is cold on our walk<br \/>\nthe slush seeps into my boots<br \/>\nyou kick the dog<br \/>\nhis whimper pierces the cold white sky<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou never say his name<br \/>\ncall him \u201cBastard\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cSon of a bitch\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cFucking mutt\u201d<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nYou are kind to me on the walks<br \/>\npointing out the formations of snow on the marsh<br \/>\ntaking my hand to cross the black ice<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nIt is an unspoken understanding<br \/>\nthat we are the unloved misfits<br \/>\nPatches loved so completely by my mother<br \/>\nthat he is to be hated<br \/>\nstill I wince at his cries<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI leave home at sixteen.<br \/>\nPatches dies of cancer a year later<br \/>\ncancer discovered during a routine kick<br \/>\nwhen his cry turned to a howl<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI hear my mother held him<br \/>\ncaressed his black and white face<br \/>\nwhile crying into his fur<br \/>\nI hear she let him suffer too long<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSCRAPS<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI hung on to the scraps of your domesticity<br \/>\nit was the little things<br \/>\nhow you smoothed floral scented talcum powder<br \/>\non to clean sheets when making the bed<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nweekend afternoons you spent making<br \/>\nbatches of apple butter<br \/>\nhow you let me dip my bread<br \/>\ninto the pot for the first taste<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nthe collection of stickers<br \/>\nyou kept on top of the fridge<br \/>\ndoling me out a new strip on<br \/>\nrainy afternoons so I could<br \/>\narrange it in my sticker book<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nyour attention stopped gradually<br \/>\ncalling your name \u201cMom\u201d used to mean<br \/>\na few seconds then it blurred together<br \/>\ninto one long silence<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nby the second grade I\u2019d learned not to<br \/>\nask for anything<br \/>\nyou sitting on the couch<br \/>\nthe sunlight catching the dust particles<br \/>\nas they became part of your hair<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nyou became a fixture<br \/>\nlike the couch itself<br \/>\nunyielding to the environment<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI had to wake you for work in the mornings<br \/>\nmy hand on your shoulder to nudge you awake<br \/>\nwould be the only touch between us for the day<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI smelled your dirty shirts so I could remember you<br \/>\nlearned to live without understanding how you could<br \/>\nbe gone but still there<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nMichelle Watters\u2019 poetry has appeared in <em>Vending Machine Press, The Lake, Yellow Chair Review, Bop Dead City<\/em>, and elsewhere. She has work forthcoming in <em>Not One Of Us, three drops from a cauldron, and Allegro Poetry<\/em>. Michelle is an assistant poetry editor for Mud Season Review. She lives in Shelburne, Vermont with her husband, daughter and two dogs. For more of Michelle\u2019s work, go <a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=1070#Watters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\n<a id=\"Wiseman\"><\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong>Laura Madeline Wiseman<\/strong><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nSCRATCH TEST<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWhen I go to an allergist, I tell him I\u2019m a vet. I tell him I ail. I don\u2019t say cats. I don\u2019t itch my hands. I don\u2019t sneeze. He takes notes. He shows me a diagrams on his laptop. He says he\u2019ll scratch me, but I\u2019ve got to take off my shirt after he leaves. I take off my shirt, one covered in cat fur, the pale hairs like kisses on blue cotton, and put on a gown. He returns to scratch me fifty-six times and leaves, again. I wait. The nurse waits with me for the scratches to rise up pink and bothered. They do, every one of them. I\u2019m on my belly, can\u2019t see the proof of damage, can\u2019t see what insurance covers, can\u2019t think of anything but scratching my back. I chant like a mantra, <em>Not cats. Not cats. Not cats<\/em>. When the doctor returns with clipboard, prescription pad, and flowing ends of white coat, he says like an apology, <em>Oh boy, you\u2019re allergic to everything<\/em>. I don\u2019t say, <em>I\u2019m not a boy<\/em>. He doesn\u2019t say, <em>No more cats<\/em>. I go home, cuddle cats, take a bath with the door wide open. Tabbies sit on the counter. One sticks a paw in to drink. One rolls on the floor, yawning, teeth clicking. I put my head underwater to hold my breath, listen and think. The doctor didn\u2019t say, <em>everybody<\/em>. He said, <em>everything<\/em>. Everyone knows a cat is more than a thing.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nLaura Madeline Wiseman\u2019s recent books are <em>Drink<\/em> (BlazeVOX Books), <em>Wake<\/em> (Aldrich Press), and <em>The Bottle Opener<\/em> (Red Dashboard). Her work has appeared in <em>Prairie Schooner, Margie, Mid-American Review, Ploughshares<\/em>, and <em>Calyx<\/em>. Her collaborative book <em>Intimates and Fools<\/em> (Les Femmes Folles) with artist Sally Brown Deskins, is an Honor Book for the 2015 Nebraska Book Award.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"#poets\">List of Poets<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/?page_id=879\/html\/\">Go to Top of Page<\/a><br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\">Edited by Roderick Bates<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4>\n<p style=\"text-align:center\">RAT&#8217;S ASS REVIEW VOLUME THREE, ISSUE 2 WINTER 2015 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<\/p>\n<\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Welcome to the winter 2015 issue of Rat&#8217;s Ass Review. We have many new poets as well as a generous selection of new poems by poets we have published in earlier issues. &nbsp; If you came here looking for a particular poet or poem, the links below will get you where you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":958,"parent":0,"menu_order":83,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-879","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=879"}],"version-history":[{"count":169,"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3334,"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/879\/revisions\/3334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ratsassreview.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}