LindaAnn LoSchiavo, who recently won Wax Poetry & Art’s poetry contest, has been published in Ink & Letters, Measure, Mused, Switched-On Gutenberg, Windhover, as well as in other literary journals and numerous anthologies. Her chapbook “Conflicted Excitement” was just released by Red Wolf Editions.

The Milliner’s Late Night

Her millinery shop had windows bright
With fascinators for madame whose face
Needs artificial lace to help erase
Ten years and homburgs for suburbanites
Disguised as understated socialites.
She scanned the sawdust-trampled street in case
Her customer was late or had misplaced
The payment for this bretonne veiled in white.

Winds cold as fingers of an old cashier
Blew scraps through the boutique as beggars took
Their place.  The organ grinder’s monkey held
His fez when coins appeared as sunset neared.
A lady, cloaked, knocked with a frantic look
As, in the distance, wedding steeples belled.

La Rue des Reves

All day I’m puppet-ized, hands sawing air,
Their talking plain as pain and used to strike
Till violet tedium of sunset’s sky
When gusts of melancholy lid my eyes.

My mind runs tapes of where I’d rather be,
Deletes a vast unusable past.  Bed:
Your clean sheets generate sweet luxury,
Spread an eternity of wonders there
On home soil, dimming fierce red real-life blooms.

Love’s shuttered silence shifts; its centers can’t
Hold where dream’s silence is its lexicon.

They disappear, these imperfections, leave
No record how they felt, dragged day by day.

Embracing sleep — — my necessary angel — —
Connecting what’s affirmed from under, I’m
Out, walking lines between my heaven’s earth
As bedsprings bear the bother, this great weight.

Boccaccio and The Decameron

In air arranged by bees, the honied sting
Stuck to Boccaccio, made him scratch his life
And bleed it on a page, gold-leafed labor
Producing volumes: prose, winged verse, critiques.

With The Decameron, mortality
Realized it had to leave this B alone.

Like Calandrino — —third tale, the eighth day — —
“Mouth hunter” never would just disappear.
One hundred stories: Florentine dessert
Preserved by honey’s words uncombed to soothe
Plague-driven years.  His other work expired,
Stung by unmanaged death, reputation
No richer for the weight of its sweet breadth.

Jeremy Springsteed is a barista living in Seattle. He was one of the founders of the Breadline Performance Series and is one of the organizers of the Chain Letter Performance Series. His work has been published in Raven Chronicles, Mantis, Make It True- Poetry From Cascadia, The Paragon Press, and forthcoming work in Pidgeonholes and Pageboy.

Our Spreading

We left home across ocean.
Virginia hills and bootleg routes,
hand cart Mormon pilgrims.
We move west and when there is no more west
we fall to the shore drinking ocean to expose more land.
We leave our old gods to the east in search of Zion.
When Zion is found we leave the valley in search of Shang-rah-la.

We are sparse like southern Idaho.
We are towering like the Wasatch front.
We are dead fly ridden Great Salt Lake.
There is no upward movement in this clan, only expansion.

Drink drug depraved dreamers.
Silent saints of salt and sky.
Poor chicken coop dwellers,
couch surfers, park campers.
Wanderlust in the veins,
dissatisfaction in the DNA.

We want to be there in our own annihilation.
We open our bodies to offer
nerve and bile
to the unfeeling and the overfilled.
Some drank or drink
or would still drink but they’ve gone to the ground.
Outcast aunt
drank until she had titanium pins put into her ankle
eventually lost that foot because she keep
passing out in the backyard
in the tomatoes,
the hose running everywhere.

Sometimes we wake up in Vegas
with hangover and regret and nothing
but the shirt on the back, even the car gambled away.
Successfully being demoted back to private thirteen times
for drinking, bet fixing, insubordination and still put up for promotion again.
Sight big enough to take in the whole of Pocatello to Walla Wall
and never raise a potato from the earth
We marry and marry and marry again
and eventually just live with our exes
because it’s cheaper rent.

How to Leave Things

Morning marches on my mattress.
I sleep in sheets made of safety pins.
Thrashing through the night
the sheets open. Dreaming pin cushion.
This is the way we keep house.

Then there are fever dreams.
Clouds of mucus tissue fill my ears.
Scrapping myself from bed
to vapor rub.
No one will do this for me now.

I plastic wrap the whole thing.
Sleep six inches above the blankets.
Constantly curious about DNA
and ownership and who looks through my trash.
I sleep up here and dust bust every chance I get.

The mattress knows every inch of me,
has a me shaped depression.
This is why it must go.
No more night-sweat-mares.
No longer a drunken moan.

No other sleepers
for I am a jealousy sleeper.
Set on fire
in metro tunnel.
The travelers can taste
the smoke of my sleep.

Kilmeny MacMichael lives in the Okanagan Valley, Canada.

Last Sunset at the Lake

Three weeks after we fled the city, taking refuge at the lake house up here in the mountains, a man walks out of the lake with a knife in his eye.

Tom and I always try to make time to enjoy the sunset together. This evening we’re both out on the balcony when Tom grunts something, and I look up from my book to see the Diseased. We watch him walk right out of that sunset over the lake, up the beach, dripping blood and water. He doesn’t see us, turns, and walks into the woods.

After a few moments, Tom gets up from his chair, saying, “Well, I think I’ll need a second cup of coffee.”

“While you’re in the kitchen,” I say, “Maybe you should call the police. Perhaps an ambulance.” Sometimes they still respond.

We hadn’t wanted to abandon the city. It was unfair to those who stayed behind, leaving them to deal with the worst of the mess. I still believe most of the Diseased can be helped, at least early on, with enough care and understanding. I volunteered for a time, taking food to the sick in our neighbourhood. But after one of the Diseased set fire to the elevator in our building, we packed up and came here. The airport is closed and the railways are refusing to run trains west of the continental divide, so we’re lucky to have the Prius.

One of Tom’s co-workers wanted a ride with us. He’s a great guy, but we had to say no. We didn’t know if he might be sick or not, and we have children to think of. He tried to stop us leaving without him, kneeling in front of our car, crying and begging. It was embarrassing.

The Disease has been simmering on the edges of society for a few years. It started by killing a hundred people one year, five hundred the next, a thousand. It only attacked the weakest and most vulnerable. Then the plague made the jump, to its current aggressive form, which can eat up most anyone.

The infection takes hold of different people in different ways. Many can go on with their lives with little trouble for a time. Some don’t even realize that they’re infected. Others seem to be gripped quick and hard. They degenerate to half-consciousness and unnatural hungers within hours.

A certain panic set in over the metropolis when the mayor succumbed live on TV.

I’m sure we’ll go back to the city eventually. We love living in Vancouver. Most of the time.

Our neighbours here at the lake are Mormons. We haven’t seen them recently, but hope they’re okay. We replaced the lock we broke through on their door. We’ve been careful not to make a mess, and plan to leave them a cheque for the food we’ve taken. It’s not bad food, a bit bland. Tom misses avocados, and the children are not thrilled with oatmeal for breakfast. I’m running low on almond milk. Yesterday I used up the last of the lip balm. Things are getting tough. I know it’s getting to be time to move on.

Some of the Diseased appear curable. A few manage to take it upon themselves to seek help, although the vast majority are far too crazed. They don’t respect any limits in who they attack, family, children or lovers. You’re safe inside if you don’t let anyone in, but you can’t let anyone in. You can’t even open the door to your closest friends or relatives if you’re not one hundred percent sure they’re okay.

And now the Disease has made its way here to resort country.

If you’re out in the open and the hungriest see you, they will try to destroy you. We’ll become prisoners in our own homes, and even Mormon stockpiles can’t last forever.

On the east side of these mountains, a fence is going up. It’s got drones, guard dogs, and nervous armed people in ugly green uniforms. They’re trying to contain the plague. Of course some people and some of the sick got across the border early, and even now, the fence is long and incomplete. Wire cutters aren’t that expensive.

Tom comes back out onto the balcony.

“What did emergency services say?’ I ask. A Diseased woman appears down the beach, followed by two or three more. They are singing the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” They are off-key.

“Got a recording that all operators are busy,” Tom says, taking a sip of his Nespresso Carmelito.

I say, “Maybe we can find a new place in Kimberley or Cranbrook to hole up in.”

Tom turns to me. “Honey, I think it’s time to move to Alberta. I’m sorry.”

It’s alright. I’m sure we’ll go on surviving. Somehow. We’ve managed so far. There are quarantine centers at official crossings. I fear there will be no almond milk or avocados for quite some time. The sun is setting.

Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has three recent chapbooks: Set List (Bitchin Kitsch,) In Stone and The Most Awkward Silence of All (both Cruel Garters Press.) His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit and Cloudbank. 

Between the Buttons

Ask the calypso singer.

Ask the boy with a booger
on his sleeve.

All shirts are equal parts
theory and praxis.

Doll Variations

The deep red sequin
on the doll’s plastic belly

works as either a ruby
or a scab.

Rust

Just hypnosis that metal undergoes.

Stephen Baily has published short fiction in some forty journals. He’s also the author of ten plays and three novels, including “Markus Klyner, MD, FBI,” which is available as a Kindle e-book. He lives in France.

Her Lucky Day

In a brand-new bright-green wheelbarrow with orange hubcaps, my mother was pushing me up the sidewalk on Cosmopolitan Avenue when we crossed paths with Mrs. Quinn, a gray-haired widow who lived in our building.

“Where on earth did you get that?”

My mother explained she’d just won it at the hardware store, as second prize in a drawing for a dishwasher.

“I only wish I knew what to do with it.”

At a loss for suggestions, Mrs. Quinn turned her attention to me. “My, he’s gotten so big. I suppose he’ll be starting school soon.”

“In the fall.”

“How time flies. Speaking of which, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m late for my sodality meeting.”

Before scurrying off to join her friends for a Coke at the drugstore—or so I thought—she made me cringe by stooping to tousle my hair.

“Be a good boy and study hard and you could grow up to be president.”

My mother waited till we were out of earshot to shake her head.

“Senator or governor, maybe, but not president.”

All at once, she lit up. “I know! It’ll make a perfect gift for the Rosenbaums when they move to their new house. We can keep it in the basement till then.”

Inside the back entrance of our building, half a dozen metal cans full of ashes were waiting to be dragged by the porter up to the curb for collection. Beyond them, a dim corridor led past the boiler room and the incinerator to the carriage room, so called because that was where tenants parked their baby buggies, bikes, and other items too ungainly to be tucked away in small apartments. Steam pipes as thick as thighs ran along the baseboards of this chamber, into which a small transom high up in the far wall admitted just enough daylight to see by. My mother was attaching the wheelbarrow to the chain securing my old carriage to a pipe when I tugged at her skirt.

“What?”

At the sight of the finger beckoning to me out of the shadows under  the transom, she snatched me off my feet and lugged me back outside so fast the sunlight dazzled me.

“That’s the last time I go in there.”

My father shrugged it off. “Kids.”

“You wouldn’t think so if you’d heard him laugh.”

To set her mind at rest, he asked the Rosenbaums next door for the loan of a baseball bat. Mr. Rosenbaum fetched two of them and insisted on accompanying him down to the basement.

The hubcaps were missing from the wheelbarrow, and its tire had been slashed. The tires and the canvas hood on my old carriage were slashed, too.

Henry Frigon lives in California with his daughter who is nearly one year old.  He writes short fiction, poetry, and prose.

The Crab

Crab sat atop a rock on the misty moon-lit beach and click-clack, clickity-clack’d a little song to himself.  The waves washed ashore bringing with them great green seaweed clumps and shells which were worn smooth by the rolling of the sea.  Crab’s rock was under a grand pier which was home to many restaurants, game stands, carousels, binoculars which cost a coin to use, and one great Ferris wheel, covered with and lit by multi-colored lights.  But Crab, who sat on his damp rock, only saw the lights of the festivities reflected in shallow pools in the sand.  He gazed at the reflections, and the light of the full moon emerged from behind a puff of wispy mist and pooled around him.

A glistening shape, somersaulting on the sea-breeze currents, and reflecting the silver moonlight, landed with a thud some four feet away from Crab.  He skittered over to it, leaving small tracks in the pillowy sand. A silver coin, polished by many excited hands, lay face up in the shining moonlight.  Crab grasped it tightly in his claw and scuttled back to his rock.  He held it up to the moon and gazed at it, for never had he been so interested in such a small thing.  He tilted his claw so the coin lay on its side and let it roll down the smooth surface of his rock.  So delighted was he by the way it glided from his stoney seat into the soft sand that he crawled to it and repeated the motions.  Three times he rolled it, and three times he retrieved it. The barnacles who clung to the pier’s posts like shavings of iron on a magnet wondered what he was doing.  The lights from the festival above glimmered in the sea, and caught his eye.  Crab left his rocky perch and crawled up a cement path, coin in claw.

When he reached the sun-bleached and salt-weathered slats of the boardwalk, he stopped, dazed, at the sight of the people. He checked to make sure the coin was still in his claw and began the trek to the end of the pier.

Many times he was nearly crushed by the giant stomping feet of tourists and party goers. Carnival music blasted his shell as he skittered between feet and trash cans, the smell of fried foods bombarding him. He came at last to a restaurant, The Mariner’s Grill, whose sign featured a crab holding a spy glass. Two warm brown hands picked Crab up from behind and turned him around.

A little girl, maybe 6 years old, with dark eyes and a wide toothy grin, smiled with delight as she eyed Crab up and down.  “Olá, Caranguejo senhor,” she giggled. “Posso ajudá-lo?”

Click-clack, clickity-clack Crab snapped, pointing his empty claw at one of the binocular stands, and showing the girl the coin in his other claw.

“Sim!” she exclaimed, and together they dashed to the binoculars.  The girl opened her hand. Crab gingerly placed the coin in her palm.  She rubbed her thumb over it for good luck, and pushed it into the coin contraption. The binoculars unlocked themselves and she looked through to make sure they worked.  She pointed them at the full moon and stared at it lovingly.  “Eu amo a lua. O que você quer ver, senhor Caranguejo?”  He pointed with his claw at the small beach-side village, the houses filled with happy families and warm hearths. The girl pointed the binoculars toward the houses and held Crab up to them. He drank in the sight of the town and was content.

Andrew Furst is a poet, author, Buddhist teacher, photographer, artist, and a technologist. His work has appeared in Poetry Leaves, Platform Review, and Failed Haiku. He self-published his first volume of poetry “Clouds Tell Us: Poetry at the Intersection of Nature and Our Humanity” in 2016. Learn more about Andrew by visiting www.andrewfurst.net

That Time

With 52 there are decades and breath mints and affinities to – the smell of burning earth rolling down your throat – forgetfulness; pills; Bed to car to eyes to ears. resolutions to just reconnect; to dance; with my wife; pictures and writing shit down. Torpor and stupor as god damn legitimate lifestyle options, but getting my ass on a trail. To a waterfall. work on time and back. On time. Skipping the soapbox, as if this ain’t exactly just that. Watching parents die and. Vortexes of coming. Cat litter. Keys. IRAs. Going. White privilege and loathing. Stealing road trips and making checklists. Bitter sights and sweet sounds. Sugar pee tests, colonoscopies, and the god damn word cardio. Making marks and just erasing them.

Immersed

And there was
the day
when I had been drowning
for so long.
Barely breathing,
choosing the struggle.
Then
I looked
at my brother
sleeping
on the cold hard ground
below me.
I would have
marveled
at his ability to float,
If I hadn’t’ve found myself,
feet on the ground.

Breathing.

Of Cider and Softness

Erin received an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University of Ohio. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in After the Pause, Into the Void, Flash Frontier, Mount Analogue, Blue River, The Airgonaut, Evansville Review, Canary,Shelia-Na-Gig, and Foliate Oak Literary, among others.

Renovations

you follow me to our room
cataloguing faded wall paint
cracked picture frames
dusty windowsills

I do not think you notice
I am silent

it was be easy, you insist
a few cans of eyelet blue
some Endust, frames from
the discount store

I do not think you notice
how I fall
on our bed
my hair unwashed
as it has been for days

just a few fixes here and there
you say, our home could be
beautiful

but as our cabinets improve
I break a little more

The Attic is filling

the swelling floorboards
& dusty rafters
not family heirlooms
but trinkets from past loves
or lives we might have led
imagined tickets stubs
& dried bouquets

not to exclude the aroma
of passion flower perfume
snaking through the vents
or the hollow notes of a violin
that is played without passion

I think we feel these things
as we rise, eat, go to work,
clean the house, fall asleep
before we have a chance
to make love

but what can be done?
the attic is overflowing
& its excess has blended
so seamlessly into our halls
& cracked ceilings

J. Culain Fripp is an Asheville, NC native who now lives in Geneva, Switzerland. Over 25 years dedicated to traveling, working, observing and reflecting on life in conflict and crisis-affected environments, internal and external, he has returned time and again to poetry as a journalistic practice. He graduated from Warren Wilson College and the University of Maryland, College Park, and is married with two children.

Absolution

Lonely resolution
Here in the empty cathedral
Bats roost above the dusty altar

Cool water on my fingertips
All-healing single blessing
Candles flicker in the breath

Through the cracked doors of the past
Voice speaks from the gloom
Solitary presence among the pews

“Leave it”