"Flashback" by Denise Icangelo

Look at this porch,
a square shabby slab of cement,
no bigger than a decent sized gravestone.

A perch for watching my mother
hanging rows of wet shorts and undershirts
on a webbed clothesline propped up
by a scarred metal pole
permanently bent to the right.

A hard platform for sky watching,
counting planes that crisscrossed overhead
and eagerly finding forms in cumulus clouds.
An elephant, a dragon and an angel drift by.

An uneasy escape from the chaos inside,
wood splintering, the explosion of glass,
slamming doors, shouting,
terrifying seconds of silence.
One time the pop of a gunshot.

An empty theater, a battered stage,
where summer sunshine spotlights
a silent child, eyes squeezed shut,
hands covering her ears,
rocking back and forth, back and forth,
back and forth.

Look at this porch,
stone cold and pockmarked from forgotten events.
Crumbled corners worn down to dust,
a rusted coffee can off in the grass.
A wasteland where dandelions and weeds stand unmolested
and clouds are only clouds, after all.

"Now Inhabitants of Otherworldy Places" by Robin Witt

It’s amazing what’s alive
   In unseen places
A people once born in tradition
        Now lost to the ages
        A civilization of unknown abilities

Creatures unknown to man
     Exist in a world all their own

To them,
    Our world is purely fictitious
But time mimics time past
  Once again

And soon we’ll only ask
         If this reality really mattered
         Wouldn’t we have found a postcard

"Material" by Cerissa Hontiveros

when I drove past cemeteries, ghosts knocked on my windows. the sky was clear, they
could have seen anything anywhere anything they wanted. people died here, never want
to leave. do they miss the smell of their lovers? buried five lots away, a matter of yards,
long eaten by whatever worms claim the flesh first. it's been years, god damn. they miss
it, I bet, they want it, that’s why they’re still here. that's why the shadows are trying to
distract me, scare me until I swerve and my tires hit the curb
                        hit a tree. I hit my head. those white outlines of nothing, they want me
with them.
and what scares the hell out of me is that when I look down at my hands, it’s as though
I’m looking at someone else’s epidermis. epidermis.
                                                                                 they're convincing me to leave.
driving alone and shifting alone and really all this time I wasn’t alone and I don’t
appreciate that.
            what a selfish person I am.

"Taking the Bait" by Katie Stanton

I kept running teeth through strands. It didn't look quite right,
Started a heatwave, ran it through, over and over;
What should I have been for you?
Face mask, smear the paint with brushes, fingers, cloth and spray-
So different from the inside.

Now I'm marching down the timeline,
Casting the line for a bite, swinging hips from side to side
And picking my way into unsuspecting thoughts
That are gone in a matter of days.
I am a warrior with colors around my eyes and over my skin,
Armored with it. Chin raised and back straight,
I have quietly aimed myself in your direction.

I've invaded your head; you hear my heels clicking down those corridors
And see my hair tossing, and you are lit up
Bright as the lights all over us, catching my eyes from miles away,
Holding your breath.

I'm daring you to move
And I'm not even looking at you,
Bass beating inside as I am
Circled by hunger in a dizzying way, eyes closed and chest filled with it.

And then you take the bait.
I hear your voice behind me, a simple question and the two of us are in harmony:
Imperfect, unknowable, so brief and fleeting.
Your hands move my hips and rock me
Almost to sweet sleep.

A second and my eyes snap open,
And I am fair game and lost
In the middle of this frenzy again.

I realize now that I was the prey, and that I lost the charge
When you walked away, disappearing into the fog and back home
And leaving me with a myriad of thoughts.
I should have said something, anything;
Or maybe you, the conqueror, just wanted to me to know
That you and I are the exact same.

Let's hope the next time is longer and I will be looking at your face,
And that I will remember much more than just the clothes on your back
And the challenge in your eye.

"Cool Drain" by Michael Hannigan Darpino

The cool is slow blue steam settling slow motion across
empty asphalt split by yellow cabs in the night. Spreading
warmth from the hands of a cop touching frail iced up veins
in the pale arms of her tragedy. A white line broken in
places, reflecting street-lamps looks like tracers shooting
up the street. Her angle is crooked and blurred with the
haze of daze on this cool effect. Wrapped up in needles
broken under foot as an ambulance parts steam clouds like a
ship born from glacier. Like salvation on wheels but not
for her. Blue lips part with cool inspiration as her last
breath mingles with steam and floats above the scrambled
scene on the curb below.

She settled on this cool drain into nothing. She dies by
choice.

Giving birth to nothing but a sad soul ejected by mouth and
floating in spirals over the wrong side of town.

Even here the lights are beautiful.