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LYMPHOMA, AGE 14
by Katherine Davis The pace changed in ninth grade. Some boy had shot your collarbone With his collection of marbles. The colors Were obscure. Only surgeons saw them. Even the aggies weren't given in a bottle. Next were the scans for dark matter. You were dumb. Didn't ask to see them. Hell, you were frightened of mutant devils, Toy soldiers in the war against you. Caught with their hands up, some confessed Their name and rank— a starting point For a chemical arsenal. Killing enemies Plus women and children. Your survival. O bitter taste, and terrible parachute. You marched off the plane like a winner, But the sweat stank in your boots. Be sick like a grown man. Run through The rancid acid, the souvenir teeth On a chain bouncing on your chest. Easy enough to pull out of gaping Mouths that you pity as you pass. Don't mumble: shout your prayers. Private pain is useless as foggy goggles. Gases from your lungs swirl into the general. Stateside, no one wants to hear. You are alone in silent panic. Your loved ones must be relieved, But they don't speak for fear. So the pace picks up. What God Maximizes the trial course? Your heart is sore, made so By the volativity of battle. |
OAXACA BOY by Ruben Briseno Reveles |
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STROKE: FROM AN AWAKE DREAM, EYES WIDE OPEN by Michael H. Brownstein When you come back, what kind of day will it be? Which side of the street will we walk? Who will hum? Who will bark? : a dog in heat, tumbledown wheat shun and shout let it out let it out and in the distance the scarred seed of cucumber trees |
RED WHEEL by Stephanie Lakos |
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MY DEATH
by John McKernan Wants to burn My first communion suit Wants to melt That hour I first kissed Susan Wants to slice Every note & melody Floating inside my skull With Beethoven's Fifth I won't let him Even though every day I draw another picture Of my corpse inside granite You are all here My friends Don't go |
CEMETERY CHERUB by Brent Wiggans |
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WALLS
by Jim Conwell The walls of what was once a living abbey rise up sheer to the open sky. Inside the boundaries that these walls make, Lie the graves of those who were powerful in life Laid out neatly, in rows. Beyond the walls there, over at another wall that marks the field's boundary, there is more ground full of human remains. The unmarked graves of the paupers. My great-grandparents lie there, somewhere amongst others of their kind: friends and neighbours, strangers and even enemies. My mother and her sister Lizzie, will return with money in their pockets from their work in England. wishing to mark the exact place with a stone. They will seek out the old man who has charge of this ground, Wishing that he will tell them the exact spot. "Well missus," he will say "I don't rightly know, now. Over there somewhere, be the wall." |
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