INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Alan Britt
Shutta Crum
Jumoke Verissimo
Las Slomovits
Richard Kurtz
Lyn Lifshin
Duane Locke
Serena Wilcox
Jerry Blanton
Dami Ajayi
Odimegwu Onwumere
Joanie Freeman
Dike Okoro
Amit Parmessur
Paul B. Roth
Divya Rajan
Kim Keith
Fred Wolven
C. Derick Vann
Al Ortolani
Steve Barfield
Jim Davis
Chris Lord
Jennifer Burd
Will Swanson
Isabel Kestner
Lisa Schmidt
Running Cub
Tolu Ogunlesi
According to the Hebrews
all men are named from mud,
gargled forth in painful sculpting
formed of under-kilned clay.
Half-made, flesh slumping
like a toothpaste tube squeezed
in the center. Dirt to dust,
all things considered, isn't
too bad in the end: the body
breaks, beloved, and in the
breaking scatters out
in headwinds until the name
stains not only the crafting
aprons but also the fire
of the forger.
EXPATRIATION
Moving my books out of baggage
a brown hair from my wife
brushes my hand. Fissure
and erasure. Trace of small
moment, even the hair
without the scent, dialectic
pull of the memory. Loss.
Once there was a love
story. Once a beginning,
middle, end. Here absence
stalls and sputters. Trace
of keratin, cutting of crown,
moving her here, a bleak
scar across a page and palm.
Everything apart pulls back
together. Gently tucking
the hair into my pocket,
I become ellipses
as if I can reconstruct
specters from loss.
C. Derick Varn, Yongin-si, South Korea