In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Kate Ross
Before dinner,
I take long showers,
long as Christmas Mass.
The shower’s mouth opens
And spills warm breath onto my head –
and water’s comb
unbraids my spinal chord.
Candle drip water drops pinch like letters
off my skin. They kiss the tile floor in
a congregation of shhhs
slithering beneath my feet,
only to rise again. Steam
clouds and clings to the
glass door of encompassing chrysalis font -
thick and patient, licking like the muscadine legs
down the bowl of father’s wine glass.
Upstairs,
father slurs the blessing.
His voice rises like the tide
then drains like his bottle,
presses his eyes like hot oil on our plates
as if to nail the supper to our gratitude –
bruised red Psalm book
asleep in his hands.
father
son
holy spirit
our patron saint is Dom Pérignon!
But only when mom is asleep at the office
or hiding awake in her daughter’s bed.
Only when God is left near the shower –
a cold, forsaken puddle stuck wet from my feet.
Kitchen (Percussion),Elise Nardi
Once we were in the kitchen, by we I mean:
You, Her, Me, well He somewhere’d around, but not in the kitchen.
Thrift store vase with unnoticeable nicks; full discord of discount red-roses, us.
I hate that table if it still exists.
She was shrill like a yap dog
Just shut Her up, Quiet Her
Bark, I’ll
Let me remember:
She said,
Don’t Press Too Hard
Pens, but not then
Shrill like a yap dog
Shut Her up with a
Swing, smash, String
Discount Discord
Rose
Rose
Roses
Rose-
I try to remember if it’s real
Not, or
Still
Don’t Swing Too Hard,Yap dog
Watch that Vase, those
Rose, Rose, Roses
Would sound just as sour by any other
Name, Bark, Bite, I’ll
Remember, Kitchen Weather
You, Her, Me, well He
Well, Piano Keys, Well, Harmony, We’ll
Touch Trusses Timbre, Somewhere’d near The Kitchen
Our feet on feet of
Dipped Dampers’ Discord
I tell You:
rove backyard edges and deciduous rot
don’t stop at border, brother
Our feet on feet of
Mud, Snow, Rain
Shrill like
Sirens on Tables on Doors on Houses on
the Violets of our Violins
Kitchens, I tell You:
Shut up that Yap Dog
I’ll Quiet, You’ll Quiet
Rose, Rose,
At tables, at kitchens
in Keys that bloom on
Broken trusses
Wallets that bloom on
Broken Fences;
Backyard Edges;
She claims contralto cantata.
Refrain:
She was shrill like a yap dog
Just shut Her up, Quiet Her
Bark, I’ll
Let me remember:
She said,
Don’t Press Too Hard
I try to remember if it’s real,
Not, or
Still.
This is Kansas, Elise Nardi
Motel Six is one of few businesses that still offer smoker-friendly services.
We lit cigarettes to cover the stale of
wallpaper, nicked tables
toasted microwaves
and dangled cable wires
I laid our coats, hats, scarves
on the God-Knows-What
bed spread,
grandma-blue and magnolia
you will mock
small soaps
and
guide us there
with the turn
of your wrists,
knuckles stretched
skin taut
rolling around
steering-wheels
Light slices across the dashboard;
To you I will point out every beautiful thing.
See, I couldn’t let you
miss it,
this.
How many
miles of escape
has this car
sped
now, nights roll before us
we will drive:
always you first
You and I shared a mutual delusion that physical distance would distance us from ourselves too.
how many states has it been
of ebbing orange streetlights
dirty windows and
fingerprints
vast evergreens
tunnels and
feeling small
See:
dulling metal constructions in harmony
with lavender transcriptions
Cry mutually over
Your new home,
maybe.
I do, at least.
I imagine you walk streets not ours
new routes to grocery stores
new routines, new lover
Ad astra per aspera
Ad astra per aspera
to the stars through difficulties
They say if you kiss someone
on that bridge
over the still green lake
you’ll marry.
I blush and hope
You never kiss in Kansas
never
drive states to Kansas
without me
say,
Ad astra per aspera
Nil sine Numine
Ad astra per aspera
Nil sine Numine
I steal flowers from gardens
and you pick-pocket graveyards
I navigate through the passenger seat
and fade to black, back
here, where snow falls on
no one’s eyelashes
worth noticing.
She posits it’s an existential crisis at twenty-
I tell her it’s sitting in the driver’s seat
with can’s and can’ts
realizing:
freedom is a carrot
strung by barbed-wires
and that mileage racks up,
racks up.
Sure,Ryan Stadheim
Warm dull word stasis,
deep in overdrown
buried in sleep work,.
eat fuck,
drink
repeat.
When the mind goes,
it is not a quick thing.
It is slow, desperate shaving,
with blunt and ragged blade.
You can tell
who a man is
by where his marks are.
By what’s been burned,
or boiled, or butchered
away from him.
There’s a probable exhaustion
of usefulness
in late youth.
Chance to
cut out cold
shaking midnight,
or piss away
last frantic heartstroke,
during bright bourbon morning
with red leaves on the windowsill.
Unready but Willing,Megan Foley
And so let the bastard grant us
sharp teeth and soft cells,
fiery inverse wings.
Peel back the cattle
at dawnfill our mouths with melted sticks
of hot white glue.
We have a lot of horns to kiss before dark.
Grant us whips for elbows
and tuning forked tongues.
Today we throw our bodies
against the sound barrier
in the hope that it will rupture
and let us fall
into silence.
And so let the bastard
heel bit and bitter in the doorway,
pin our shoulder blades to the ceiling with a word.
This wasteland sustains no fire
no shelter no bombs no wind
except the breath of bats rushing down
over needle teeth.
We are hoisted up by this thread of
madness pulled from the sea foam’s mouth.
We are inside out from it
we lay back on our bones
like uncarved steaks
with knife blade knuckles.
And so let the bastard catch us sleeping
and spit black into our lanterns
and split back and break our lanterns
and break our fingers and throw us back
and break our necks and throw us back
and break our backs and throw us bones.
And so let the bastard
as he does
press his temple through mine,
command me to listen
then refuse to speak.
Lapsed,Megan Foley
Some poor soul mistook the sun for snake venom and sucked all the light from the open wounded sky. Sometimes when the clouds crawl over the border, they cut themselves open on the barbed wire of the mountain range. They spill everything, like a suitcase with a broken hinge spills black cotton socks.
Yesterday I asked you to start hiding all the felt-tipped pens. Two days ago I filled the kitchen floor with lines of sandpaper cups and put motor oil in the ice maker. Somewhere in between I showed up to work and took off my jacket to find both my arms up to the elbows were still wearing sorry sorry sorry in orange teeth-shaped curls.
This place—all of it—is an intimidation factory. Let there be no mistake- my chest is a knife block. You cannot impale me with blades that are simply returning to their home. I am a brawl in the break room. I am the hearth packed with cotton balls. I am the liquid skin of your tongue dipped in molten copper. This is not a mercy killing, this is not a cry for help, this is a chemical burn and you are not my solution.
I think you mistook my light for snake venom, you made me an open wound strung out on your barbed wire smile. I spill everything, like your suitcase did, the one with the broken hinge.
hollow,Kinsey Weil
written on the dirty bathroom wall in your hasty whiskey scrawl
I recognized your signature
cryptic literature.
a broken literary cemetery
where hollow little words
and dirty desires drift,
fall, like I,
for you
one word at a time
beautiful
broken
you
scare
me
touch
me
am
me.
Louisiana is a Four-Syllable Woman,Charlie Kieft
traipsing chintz-wise
bayoued calves white-
r than blackstrap
monarchs descend
to taste her o-
pen hominy
boys owe every
last ribboned kiss
to mother’s milk