Chromosome
We heard no sound
as they jumped
from a hundred and more
flights up
Just a simple
toss
of body into air
And from our vantage point
below the smoldering towers
through the lens
to somber houses
across thousands of miles
as they fell
they all looked the same—
no clothes
no faces
no fear
Just a black outline
two arms and two legs
joined in the center
like the wiggling X
of a chromosome
a single, unseen, unnamed
living piece in the code
of who we are
lost forever
—Darcie Whelan-Kortan
Edie
i remember most
edie sedgwick
wrapping wrapped
drugs
she stuffed
snug and sound
in her purse
in saved wrappings
she’d ironed out
with her face made up
til dawn
listening to music
as she drew
detailed horses
the size
of ants
on each flat
clean
bright
sheet
that one day
would become
a small envelope
containing sad news
—Pal Shazar
We Were Stupid
We didn’t expect the levees to break
We thought the people would leave
We didn’t expect the branches to snap
We thought the storm would pass
We didn’t expect the gun to fire
We thought the safety was on
We didn’t expect him to go in the school
We thought the door was locked
We didn’t expect her to fall down the stairs
We thought someone would hold her hand
We didn’t expect the plane to disappear
We didn’t expect the market to crash
We didn’t expect the baby to die
We didn’t expect the cancer to spread
We didn’t expect
We lived with our eyes facing in
We didn’t want to know
—Amy Caponetto Galloway
Half
Please bury my bones
at the far end of Lake Awosting,
close to the shoreline
where water laps against rock
in stride with late August winds.
I’d like to finish what I started—
it’s what I was after all along,
asking with each step
for Earth’s acceptance,
chasing the unfinished loop,
lost in the shadow of Castle Point,
finally too far to climb,
forever out of reach
and free from worry
but always in view
below a shielding hand
and bare wrist,
absent the watch
buried deeper in the dirt,
drowned out
by rhythmic calls of autumn.
—David Lukas
To Garden
When I suppose you smiling back,
soft, into my sunny gaze,
silent and imagining
the sturdy order of our days,
a seeded herb pressed in a book of verse
awaiting an incant,
a heart-shaped stone washed smooth of sand
and hidden in a potted plant.
Love then, untold, in rocky fold.
—Tina Dybvik
My Father’s Hands
When I see fireflies,
I feel my father’s hands
Cupped ‘round mine.
Moving the jar here, now there.
Night hums
dark and near;
Tiny flashlights everywhere.
—Michele Alexander
Home
What Is That If That Is Missing
Feeling Is The Fourth Dimension
Dying Is The Fifth
You Know I Got It Out For You
Bang Your Head - It’s A Head Banger
Left In The Space In Your Teeth
It’s Doomed
No Space For Me
Give Me Something Scary And Send It My Way
Now Soothe Me
I Spit On Your Flowers
You Run Away Because You Have
A Short Attention Span And You’re A Coward
Yet I Feel Your Embrace
You Light My Way
Down To My Soul
From My Head To My Heart
But It Doesn’t Last
Things Change
They Move And Shift And Stab And Penetrate
I Don’t Care Anymore
Strike Me
Or Just Pat Me Back To Life
Things Change
Things Do Change
Fire Burns And Water Streams
God Isn’t Interested
Just A Little Piece
Tear It Off And Let It Live
But Keep It Near, Within Your Grip
Or Was There No Dying
No Being Born
Or Was It Romantic?
A Complex Story
A Feast
Fear Of The Unknown?
Now You’re Talking
Life Is Enchanted
The Portal Must Close
I Want To Peer Inside
Life Before Death
Death Before Life
I Want To Go Inside
But Only Part Of Me Can Make It
Home
—Caleb Beecher
Speeding pick-up truck
Stars and Stripes all a-flutter
Perilous journey
—Steve Mulvey
Chokepoint
That ugly fucker’s head exploded
before the day’s opening rays
hit the night-cooled sand.
We’re trained since basic
to aim for center of mass:
torso, chest, vitals
but Terry tends to give the first one
a whirl like he’s back home
twenty years ago in the hills of Tennessee
squirrel hunting, trying not
to damage much meat.
When you’re that good
you’ve got to entertain yourself
regardless of what the manuals
or screaming drill sergeants say
half a globe away.
“Contact,” I said lowly
as I confirmed the hit
through the scope above my 7.62
a half-second after he cycled the bolt
and chambered the next round
in the .300 he’d been issued this deployment.
All hell broke loose in the desert
as AKs fired blindly into the dim dawn.
“Contact, contact,” I reiterated in the same tone
as Terry pushed the second and third ones
back two meters to the ground.
The party began to scatter.
We’d seen movement at their knees
prior to engaging
and assumed they were goats
but livestock don’t have arms to flail
when picked up as human shields
by cowardly targets.
We’d been warned in our briefing about this group’s
ruthless tactics and ordered not
to compromise the mission at all costs.
That’s Uncle Sam’s way of saying
“Leave your conscience at home, boys.”
The kids—humans, not goats—were
too far off for us to hear their screaming.
Terry and I were grateful for that.
When his next shot kicked up dust
we were equally thankful for that.
I’d never seen Terry miss until then.
I have a few times since.
His wife had recently gone through stillbirth
as he was on a bird back to the sandbox.
I knew it was on his mind.
He dropped his mag and inserted one
full of heavier-grain ammo
as if the mild crosswind had caused
the last lighter bullet to drift.
Before he could acquire his next target
I painted the middle of the hot spot
with the laser designator
affixed to the front of my rifle
and called in an airstrike
on the radio clipped to my vest.
It was easier to push one button
than to pull a trigger a dozen times
with each shot hoping to hit a narrow margin
or miss.
We’re a team, right or wrong
no matter which god’s eyes are judging.
The missiles cruised down as we covered
ourselves as best we could for impact
feeling the ground shake beneath our prone bodies.
A charred crater kissed by the scornful sun
was the only evidence that our objective had been met.
The trek back to base was silent
aside from the crunching of sand
older than our continent.
He never thanked me outright
but the next time it was my turn
to empty the latrine he volunteered instead.
That’s as close as it gets with guys like Terry.
He and his wife could try for another child
whenever he’d go stateside again.
We were told a few days later
by westernized adolescents
selling candy bars in the nearest town
that the sunset in their province
is beautiful as well.
–Mike Vahsen
Flirtation
You offer tart compliments,
topped with a dollop of cream:
I eat them up and lick my lips.
—Elizabeth Young
Unbinding
What I used to hold
as myself,
turned out to be a chrysalis.
Now it split open.
An old woman is emerging,
unbinding herself
with unhurrying care.
She will unfurl her crumpled rags,
harden them into wings.
—Yana Kane
The Dawn of Civilization
I appear, then you.
That this has turned
from me to we,
the sharing is implicit.
—Cliff Henderson
The New Wave
Well,
if we’re gonna
Put up with gonna
Perhaps there’s hope
For
Irregardless
—Anthony G. Herles
