in my face—like a child catapulting his potatoes
off his fork. Why have you digressed in this life?
Can you not see past what lies on your plate?
There is so much more than carrots and potatoes
in my face—like a child catapulting his potatoes
off his fork. Why have you digressed in this life?
Can you not see past what lies on your plate?
There is so much more than carrots and potatoes
There is no sweetest night of moon
If the playground is without your presence
There is no beautiful morning at all
If the rising sun is not your face
Hands reach out
touch soothing the yowl
holding close and secure
neck crooked making
a safe shelter
Envision Scarlett Johansson’s disheveled blonde
in Vicky Cristina Barcelona
going in for that girl-on-girl kiss
ensconced in the reddish amber glow of the dark room.
Sweating drummers
Growing so wild
Anxious crowds
Expanding like ringworm
We are proud to present three poems from Romanian-born poet Claudia Serea’s The System, a cycle of poems inspired by her father’s experiences as a political prisoner in Communist Romania, which will be published by Cold Hub Press later this year
She cried as her uterus weeps
crimson tears of longing to be needed
confronting the fear that her ovaries have withered
unplucked grapes desiccated on a fallopian vine.
these stained
and weathered
pages destroy
every misgiving
every sadness
and every anger
clouding this
reader’s mind
in the mystery of
each yellowed
passage
There was nothing to do, so they took turns shooting at each other. It was just pellets, but the metal bits still stung and to get one in the eye meant blindness.
where
people
are
signing
petitions
to legalize
marijuana,
joints going
around
and women
baring their
tits for
no good
reason
at all