Before The Move

We are in the floorboards here
I kneel down and lay my hands
On the old barnwood planks
Our first house—big step
Baby steps, first steps, dance steps

The big picture window where
I always beat the sunrise to the sofa
Pink tumbling over a sleeping mountain
A nursing baby at my breast
Another sun another son

We carved our traditions here
The turkeys and the pumpkin pie
The Christmases the Fourths of July
Birthdays, holidays—all holy days
Our rituals rooted in the seasons

September 1997

I asked sleep for a few favors.
So a lightbulb became
the sun’s sojourn;
a notebook, the expectant grass;
a crayon, the watering pot;
a scrawl, the gathering dusk;
a train horn, the private night.

i forget i fell asleep with you and can’t think of anything sweeter

you fall asleep with coffee breath, & the rain starts, hitting the sidewalk
as the dog whistles. the dog is whistling next to you & everything is
silent still. i imagine the noise of nothing sliding through the house. at
our world’s end, olive bread. so we ripped it off the loaf. our last meal
in the big house that no longer feels like ours. scattered we are,
segmented. yeasty fingers finding mouths & tasting only closeness.

Mockingbird

As it often does moving by memory, your body finds mine, fits puzzled into angles and curves in those hushed hours—were it not for the mockingbird screaming into the moonlit, slate-grey sky.

What we know, we already know

Peter Crowley is an independent writer and scholar with a M.S. in Conflict Resolution, Global Studies from Northeastern University. He works as Content Specialist/Production Coordinator for a prominent library science company. For fun, he plays in bluesy rock band around the Boston/NYC area. His writings can be found in Boston Literary Magazine, Mondoweiss, Mint Press News, […]

Thom Yorke

Michael Madden’s work can be found in Into the Void Magazine. He earned his MFA from Spalding University. Thom Yorke Thom Yorke sing me lullaby Each night as I lay dying Morning music—Jeff, Lucinda, Marvin But Thom sing me lullaby Sweet lullaby Each night As I lay dying I like the strings I like the […]

Laundry

Nicole Siciliano is a public relations professional working in financial services in New York City. She turns to creative writing and poetry as a hobby to rediscover the softness and vulnerability of everyday life that can oftentimes be overlooked by its mania. She is most often inspired by the power of the shared experience. A graduate of […]

Salva Animam Meam

Annie Blake is an Australian writer, thinker and researcher. She is a wife and mother of five children. She started school as an EAL student and was raised and, continues to live in a multicultural and industrial location in the West of Melbourne. Her main interests include psychoanalysis and metaphysics. She is currently focusing on in medias res […]

The Waffle House on Battlefield Parkway in Chickamauga

Matthew Bruce Harrison’s writing can be found in West Branch, Yemassee, Carolina Quarterly, Texas Review, Adroit Journal, Cincinnati Review, Bayou, Gargoyle and Permafrost, among others. His poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart and for the Best of the Net Anthology, and his fiction has been nominated for the storySouth Million Writers Award and was […]

Applied Science

Patrick Theron Erickson, a resident of Garland, Texas, a Tree City, just south of Duck Creek, is a retired parish pastor put out to pasture himself. His work has appeared in Grey Sparrow Journal, Cobalt Review, and Burningword Literary Journal,among other publications, and more recently in The Main Street Rag, Tipton Poetry Journal, Right Hand Pointing,and Danse Macabre. Applied Science Bound […]

Visitant

Literary pilgrims welcome

sleep