Dirty Bits
by Merrill Cole
No, it’s not pornography.
The suture hardly holds.
It sags like old glass.
Cut in half,
A smile becomes sellable.
No, not ghosts.
The laundry of the dead,
Listing in the wind.
Stains quiet in early light.
Among the eyeless dolls
And unpriced socks.
Hit with limbo,
The body grows damp.
No, call it a garden,
Where sallow flowers bloom
Like low wattage bulbs.
Merrill Cole is an Assistant Professor at Western Illinois University, where he teaches queer studies, poetry, modernism, and creative writing. His study of modernism was published by Routledge in 2003: The Other Orpheus: A Poetics of Modern Homosexuality. His translation from the German of Anita Berber and Sebastian Droste’s Dances of Vice, Horror, and Ecstasy appears in this summer’s issue of Action, Yes! He has published poems in the U.S., the U.K., and Australia. Currently, he is shopping around a poetry manuscript, Body Parts.
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Like J.D. Salinger
by M.V. Montgomery
I’m not a very social person, it’s true. The idea of speaking before a group
of people no longer fills me with mortal fear, but if I could instead clock in
at a stupid warehouse job and be alone all day with my thoughts, or maybe
not have to think at all, and only now and then take a break to shoot the bull
with one of my co-workers, that’d be sort of cool. My place isn’t too bad—
I’m back far enough from other houses to yell or prance around like a moron,
if I decided to. But it’d be better to walk out the door like the Invisible Man,
totally naked if that’s what you felt like doing, and not have to worry about
running into anyone you were obligated to greet. Maybe you’d see the ocean
instead, or even just a crumby duck pond. My neighbors are always backing
out of driveways, getting and spending like Wordsworth said, or riding around
on mowers like big shot farmers. And utility trucks make pretty constant noise.
So anyway, if you considered lying in a hammock and quietly reading a book,
or communing with nature like one of those dead poets, you’d be out of luck.
M.V. Montgomery has two forthcoming books of poetry, Strange Conveyances and Joshu Holds a Press Conference.
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White
by Rosemary Royston
The sheets in all hotels are white. Name one hotel you’ve stayed in that didn’t have white sheets. It takes a lot of bleach to keep white sheets white. Last night she pulled the pillow with its white case over the top of her head. All he can see when he wakes is the white pillow on her face. Jaw, neck, shoulders, exposed. Then more white. The white of the sheets. Then nightmares of white: white cotton in her mouth. White feathers in her throat. He snatches the pillow off her head. The white light under the blinds wakes her. The white sheets slide away. Her breasts are white pears.
Rosemary Royston lives in northeast Georgia and works as a strategic planner at a small liberal arts college. Her poetry has been published in The Comstock Review, Main Street Rag, and Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine. She holds an MFA in Writing from Spalding University.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I really enjoyed reading this poem. It’s really lovely