ABOUT

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL

ARCHIVE

LAGNIAPPE

MAST

SUBMISSIONS

Graphic

You took a week to lay the sidewalk—
grade the earth, frame it, square the two-by-fours,
pour concrete, trowel it, like buttering bread—
while I watched you work the site. I loved
the hammer's arc, the flow of sand, absolute steel.

Concrete takes any impression—the neighbor
kid's opposing hands, the date dug in deep,
a stray cat's random paw print—and forever

fixes it. What was it caught your eye?
Did the sun ignite my russet curls as I went
to get the mail? Did I forget to close the blind?
Was I indiscreet? Did you snicker
with the other pricks as you fingered "I
love red hair pussy" in the wet cement?


Corn

Okay, so we enter the maze. Let us
decide there is no bull, first, and no thread,
no backing out, and the only prize is
in the taking. The sun forever overhead,
no rising, no setting, only zenith. The heat
strains, a solid bound, a force
                                                 intent on breaking.
Or wait. Perhaps the moon instead,
white hot, heavy, excuse and lumen all at once.

Will I walk ahead? Will you steer me, your
hands on my hips? Or will you lead me, one
hand in mine, the other pressing back the blades?
Will we stop, turn, face our own
invention, this labyrinth we've made?
Will the stalks' only motion imitate ours?



"Then What," You Ask

"what after we've held the moon in our hands?"
If it is horned, perhaps we carry it
between us, orange and open, purloined
and pulsing, the most delicious secret
two tongues ever tasted. If it is half
or even quarter, we might deposit
it, a long, slow accrual, one last breath
to finish it. But if it be a whole
moon, consummate and bright, we'll bury it
in a glass casket, in the deepest earth.
Knowing we've sown the last seed whose harvest
only we could gather, we'll suffer its
entombment, pity the dark and lonely sky,
and learn to live by walking on its light.



Regression

The theory says the ties remain, past lives
shuffled, juggled, rearranged but never
severed. In my bones, I know it's true, know

myself a falconer, know the tug of jesses,
the lift of wings, the loss of claws, the weight
gone from my wrist. That leaves you a merlin,
swift and lethal, best suited to a woman.

I also know myself an antlered hart,
know the slash of hooves, clash of horns, the fight
to win a mate. That leaves you the goddess
moon-huntress, opiate, merciless rune.

But you know yourself an outlaw, stubborn,
vengeful, just, Bill Doolin cornered, a Dalton
cut to pieces, a Younger hell-bent for home.

I must believe in choices and cannot
choose Bonnie to your Clyde, or worse, some
nameless wife left waiting. Rather, let me be

Butch to your Sundance, Frank to your Jesse,
than be torn apart by my own dogs.