Bulletproof
By Sue D. BurtonToday it’s Hopkins and his obscure spiritual contraptions –
everything I read is heart-corseted, like a concealable vest,
police surplus good as new. Some fanatic is packing a gun.
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Baby of the Month
By Maya PindyckMy friend tells me she just saw October Baby,
a movie about a woman who finds out she was
almost aborted—“abortion survivor,” she calls herself.
I ask my friend if she’s seen the newest flick,
Certain Seams
By Jill KhouryThe boy across the street points at me and lisps—now I know what they mean in books when they say children lisp. He wears a red and white striped t-shirt, addresses my friend who walks beside me. I ask people to please walk on my left side. It’s the eye that’s not completely dead I say. They always move over.
Oceanside, CA
By Marie-Elizabeth MaliBalancing on crutches in the shallows
near her mother, a girl missing her right lower leg
swings her body and falls, laughing.
Anxiety Attack at 27,000 Feet
By Nicholas SamarasWhat is that red throbbing over the sound of engines?
Why is a distant war still being talked about in the media?
I can't see my home or Iraq or the Middle East
outside this bowed rectangle of blue altitude.
The Dogs and I Walked Our Woods,
By Gretchen Primackand there was a dog, precisely the colors of autumn,
asleep between two trunks by the trail.
But it was a coyote, paws pink
Dressing Down
By Kamilah Aisha MoonWhen you're gay in Dixie,
you're a clown of a desperate circus.
Sometimes the only way to be like daddy
All the Trees of the Field Shall Clap Their Hands
By Eduardo C. CorralAre the knees & elbows
the first knots
the dead untie?