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(please read Perspective from top to bottom and then bottom to top) you were gone the door left open you look around, nervous I lie still on the floor my head bloodied against the boards bending you grab my arm and squeeze my wrist one hand pushes against my chest my heart beats loud but slow a taste of salt mixed with metal. Your tears or mine? crying you part my lips and hover over my mouth your warm breath now on my neck, and your fingers through my hair your hand cups my face and pulls me close shaking kiss me one more time Gina is currently working on my first novel but have found that my time staring at the screen has inspired lots of flash and poetry pieces! I have a flash piece that will be published this month as part of FlashFlood's National Flash Fiction Day.

Circulation the heart pumps blood to the lungs. this is a library. i am the books. the lungs pump blood back. books live in the library. the library is only the shell for the books inside. you can read the books, you can visit the library, but neither are yours. the heart pumps blood to the body. neither the books nor the library belong to you. they are merely for borrow, if you have a library card. in order to get a library card, you must file for an application, express interest in the library in a respectful and totally consenting manner, and wait for the library to accept your application. the body pumps blood to the tissues. the tissues are on the circulation desk. you should not need them. libraries are supposed to be a happy place. if you do not get accepted for a library card, this is not your library to visit. please vacate the premises. the tissues pump blood to the veins. do not take the library in vain. it is not yours. it is merely for borrow, and only if the library lets you borrow it, and the library has expressed explicitly that you are not allowed to borrow it. the library asks that you leave the premises. the veins pump blood to the heart. you are not allowed to borrow the books or use the spaces. you are not welcome here. the library asks you to leave the premises. the heart pumps blood to the lungs. the library asks you to leave the premises. the lungs pump blood back. the heart pumps blood to the body. the blood clots. the body is unresponsive. you are not welcome here. courtesy marketing pitch to Edible Arrangements™ you know that feeling, the one where you’re holding something— maybe a mango, or something similar of the produce variety— and you know that you have every power in your being to squeeze the shit out of it and watch as the insides work themselves from the shell until there is nothing left inside and you feel like a monster, except something else, maybe a little voice in the back corner of your conscience, says that nature would not have given you that strength if it didn’t think that you had every right to use it as you see fit, much in the same way that you always have the choice to throw the monopoly board and all its falsified societies and colorful currency, to become a major league pitcher and hurl your drink across the room until it splatters against the opposite wall, even if its glass conduit shatters to pieces into a puddle of broken pieces and sharp edges; my seventh grade science teacher tells me that the human jaw is strong enough to bite off our own finger, but some reflex stops us from actually doing so, every time. Redlining The plastic surgery team take up their markers and turn my flesh into a Fantasy Football league; They each stake an initial claim— one goes directly for the brain, pulling weeds from the cracks in my cerebrum, one takes inventory of each sac of air in my lungs, and one unearths each capillary and ties them together, having heard that they could reach around the Earth two and a half times. They spend a while in my chest, debating who must take the appendix, the heart, and all the other unfavorable bits. They settle on a chamber for each, leaving in its place a barrel of monkeys with the cap unscrewed; it isn’t until years later that they realize, staring at my unarmed pieces floating in their plastic examination jars, that perhaps these parts were never the problem at all. Maia Joy (she/her) is a queer biracial poet and musician from Boston, MA. A 2021 Best-of-the-Net nominee, she is currently studying music and creative writing at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she is a member of the Jimenez-Porter Writers' House. Her work has been previously published in various journals including The Bitchin’ Kitsch and Sage Cigarettes. You can find her social media @maiajoyspeaks, and her website, maiajoyspeaks.wixsite.com/website.

Marceline loved the way the swollen, pale vintage green of each lush olive barely breached the cloudy liquid in a good dirty martini. They could pass for lunch if there were enough of them shoved into the delicate deep V glass, speared like an arrow through a heart. Dinner even, if they were stuffed with blue cheese. She loved the slick shock of the cold brine when it hit the back of her throat, the fragile glass that could shatter with ease if she bit down hard enough. The sloshing if she didn’t hold it steady enough. And when she had too many, she loved the dizzy faraway nausea that came on fast, and then was quickly replaced by a warmth that made decisions for her. Sometimes it took her to bed. Sometimes it took her other places. Marceline never knew which way it would go. Martinis were all so careful and intentional and delicate and unclear and chaotic all at the same time. It was 4:45 pm, and Marceline had just downed her second very dirty martini from room service. “It’s like Lost in Translation, but make it Vegas,” she quipped, on the phone. “I think the movie was called that because it took place in Japan,” Cat said. “Because like, they all spoke Japanese and she didn’t and she couldn’t communicate with anyone. So unless you befriend an old dude who is as charming as Bill Murray, I don’t see the connection.” Cat was a graphic designer Marceline worked with on start-up branding projects. Cat worked in-house at a small creative agency that used Marceline as a freelance copywriter from time to time. They met in person sometimes, but mostly had developed a fun phone rapport that kept them talking long enough for Marceline to invoice a few extra hours of work per week. “Wasn’t ScarJo there because her husband was working?” Marceline asked. She stared at a lukewarm bottle of Smartwater across the room, the squeezy kind, half full. The olive juice made her parched, but she felt too lazy to walk across the carpeted floor to satisfy her thirst. “And she was all lonely, and no one understood her? It was a metaphor. Vegas is a wholly foreign place all its own. It’s dark, Cat. It’s real dark.” “Well, you’re not married yet anyway,” Cat said, and yawned. It was almost Friday, 8 pm New York time, and Cat was likely more than eyeing the clock. Marceline watched her feet float above her head, pale from the torrid Manhattan winter she and her fiancé had escaped from for his software company’s annual conference. The hotel bedding was marshmallow soft and just as white, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a streaming view of other sprawling buildings flanked with glittering marquees and swaths of dusty air. If you squinted, way in the distance, through the cigar-thick smog, was nature. Mountains. Clouds. A true deep breath was so far away. Marceline and her fiancé were staying at Mandalay Bay, the site of the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. In 2017, Stephen Paddock opened fire from his hotel room window on a crowd of festival concertgoers, killing 58 people and injuring 413. Marceline’s fiancé’s company was always on the hunt for a good deal, Marceline thought, shivering, wondering which room Paddock had stayed in. A few years before, 2016, his company had put everyone in The Trump Hotel. Marceline spent that week angrily ordering turkey club sandwiches from room service, keeping track of each expense so she could send double the amount to Planned Parenthood when she got home. He hadn’t told her until they arrived. “You wouldn't have come,” he said flatly, while she seethed. “So you have what, two days left?” Cat asked. “Three? What are you going to do?” “Ugh, I don’t know,” she said. “Besides pickling my liver and sitting in secondhand smoke while judging strangers?” They said goodbye and hung up. Marceline almost never saw her fiancé during these conferences. He left before dawn and returned deep into the night. Sometimes she would return to the room to find he had been there, a thrown backpack at the foot of the bed, or some promotional pens placed like roses on her pillow. It was like being on a vacation with a very corporate ghost. Marceline luxuriated in getting ready. There was so much freedom in being in a new place. She could exaggerate things. Glitter was more than acceptable. So were push-up bras and lollipop lip gloss. Marceline’s fingers hovered over the bottles and liquids and pots and bottles, eventually landing on her usual tasteful, natural choices. She’d go all out on her last night, she promised herself. But she was only going downstairs. Marceline soon found herself belly up to a bar deep into the cavernous mouth of the Mandalay Bay casino. The moment you stepped out of your room, windows, time, and the outdoors cease to exist. It was no secret that casinos pump oxygen through the vents to keep the zombies awake, but it was unsettling the way Marceline’s martini and pajama lethargy had been immediately replaced by an alert euphoria. “You’re back!” a jovial voice boomed from down the deep wood grain bar top. “Grey Goose martini dirty, yeah?” “Sean, right?” she said. The bearded bartender nodded and winked at her. “I’m actually kind of feeling like an espresso martini.” “You got it, babe,” he said, and disappeared down the bar. She pushed in, feeling the stoic discomfort that comes from a bar stool and high-waisted jeans. It didn’t matter what your body type was, they always felt like someone was sawing you slowly in half. She took shallow breaths. Sean placed the adult chocolate milk in front of her, next to a tiny bowl of mixed nuts. “Rosemary,” he said, gesturing to the sticky herbs coating each nut. “So what’s the plan for tonight?” “I dunno, what do you think I should do?” she said. Marceline liked the safety that came with bartender flirting. There was a physical barrier between them. It was mostly their job to be nice and ask questions. Sean pointed down the bar, to a gaggle of men loosening their ties and sucking down oysters. “You could hang out with them,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. Marceline rolled hers. “Yeah, totally,” she said. She liked being in on the joke, liked knowing that some people could see how different she was. She sipped her cool, creamy drink, soothing her stomach from the salt and vodka from earlier. Marceline pulled a book out of her purse, something nondescript and vague and thriller-y. The word “girl” in the title. A man once told her that women only read books in bars for attention, and ever since then, she felt a heightened sense of awareness whenever she cracked one open in public. Like it was a green traffic light. She made sure her sparkling engagement ring was facing outward. She knew it was big; she saw women eye it discreetly sometimes on the subway. Marceline knew she was attractive, but nowhere near the cartoonishly stunning of the Vegas-employed. She wasn’t the breath-taking kind. Being the in-between kind of pretty was almost worse, and that’s the kind that Marceline was. She was approachable. She had the kind of look and taste in clothes that made men think “maybe she’s a little out of my league, but I can afford top-shelf scotch. My watch is nice. This girl will at least talk to me.” And they were right, because girls like Marceline were taught that being rude was the worst thing she could be. So she let men on airplanes scroll through their camera rolls to show her the rock stars they’d met. But she would grumble and shoot arrows from her eyes the whole time. They just never noticed. Mandalay Bay was labyrinthine and dark. Having been there a few days already, she recognized faces and bodies that never moved from their slot machined stations. A cigarette threatened to burn through their finger bones, a plastic bucket of dirty coins, a watered down drink next to their quickly tapping shoes. They’d be there tonight, and they would be there in the morning when Marceline wandered down for a ham and cheese croissant. She tried not to look into their eyes. She quickened her pace, ordering an Uber as she scurried past. The driver’s name was Andi, a petite woman with a closely shaven head and long pink claw fingernails with gold and silver gemstones glued to the ends. Marceline admired them as Andi handed her a bottle of water. Her stomach rumbled. She looked at a list on her phone of places she wanted to go while she was in Vegas. “Could you take me to Frankie’s Tiki Room?” She was suddenly ravenous, and the air freshener was dizzying in its cloyingness. They had to have food. Andi nodded. They promptly hit light traffic. A chasm of silence opened. “My mom was stabbed 27 times over there when I was little,” she said, looking at her in the rear view. “Sorry, I know that’s a lot, but it’s true.” She paused. “She lived.” “Oh my God, I am so sorry,” Marceline said. “That must have been awful for you.” “It was. I moved to LA as soon as I turned 18.” “How come you came back?” Marceline asked. They were pulling into a dark parking lot, a neon pink sign that said “Frankie’s” illuminated the side of Andi’s face. “My ex-husband pressured me into it,” she said. She parked in front of the sign and turned around in her seat. “Six years together and within a week here, he cheats on me. I’m telling you, Vegas is some weird shit.” Frankie’s Tiki Room did not have food, but it had enough garnishes for a kindly bartender to arrange a bunch of them on a plate for Marceline. She sat sucking on the warm pulpy strings of an orange and sipping a sweet rum punch in a thick ceramic mug shaped like a human skull. She scrolled through her phone, suddenly bored and sleepy again. The bar was lively, with groups of sauced tourists huddled in corners under the voodoo decor. She eavesdropped on a couple next to her on a first date while she pretended to read an article about climate change. “You’re on your phone too much,” came a deep voice from the other side of her. Marceline turned to see a man in his late ‘40s, dressed in a suit, a tad over-tan, nursing a whiskey neat. She felt a muted annoyance and a tiny bit of flattery. He smelled like the inside of a mahogany chest left out in the rain. “So?” “Your generation misses out on so much by being on their phones.” His face was expressionless. “Who cares?” she asked again. “I’m here alone, I can do whatever I want.” The slurry of fruit and booze in her belly was warming the rest of her, giving her a boldness. “Well, would you want to talk to me instead?” he asked, then smiled a little. There was nothing inside of Marceline that found him attractive, but she liked following things. Stories, experiences. Her mother always said there was a deep difference between “nice” and “kind.” She couldn’t tell which one this man was yet and she kind of wanted to find out. His name was Steven, and he hated being called Steve. And he immediately began commenting on her looks. “Let’s be honest, you’re a New York 8, but a Vegas 4. We both are! We’re both alone, aren’t we?” he quickly tempered it, when he saw Marceline’s eyes widen. Steven liked to talk a lot. He smiled and sipped his drink like he thought he was the most interesting man in the world. And Marceline drank while Steven talked. Tiki bars always had that really satisfying, crunchy ice. So she crunched while he talked. And...talked. You know a lot of women sit alone at bars in Vegas because they’re prostitutes. Not saying you look like one notttttt saying you look like one, but you just sitting there in those tight pants with your phone and no book? Just your phone? And then a man like me is sitting right next to a girl like you and well...assumptions could be made. Oh, now I was supposed to have a book, she thought. You couldn’t win. You were always asking for it. She smirked. Yeah, I’m here on business, obviously. I own an architecture firm in LA and come here quite often actually to take meetings. I go to Austin a lot, and down to San Diego. I’m on the road a ton. Yes, thank you, I’ll take another one. You good with your fancy drink? Those can kill ya. I saw you sitting there alone on your phone and just thought...this girl misses out on everything that could be good around her. We could be having this great conversation, she’s out here to have a good time and she’s just stuck on her phone, it’s so sad. Like my daughter. Maybe I’m just old, though. I don’t get it. Ha, it’s not like you were reading the news. They put me up in a shitty hotel this time, The Mondrian? It’s fine, it’s fine. There’s a kitchen, thank God. It’s just well...I am used to a certain level of decor because of what I do. She barely had to speak. She just sipped her drink deeply. Like a boozy brunette bobblehead. We, yes, my wife. She’s really obsessed with decorating the new house, I’m not allowed to make any decisions at all. You built it, I decorate it, she says. But really now it’s all she does. You’d think it’s her paying job haha. Marceline was starting to feel a little dizzy from nodding. She bit down on a pineapple slice and tasted blood bloom on the back of her lip. The woman next to her was sobbing now, her date anxiously moving from foot to foot glancing at the door. Oof, yeah, I see that ring on your finger. Don’t do it haha. No, but seriously, don’t. Why ruin a perfectly good thing? Here she is, this was us and her two kids (not mine) on vacation in Palm Springs last year. Not bad for 45, right? She used to be a lot more fun, though. She used to be ca-razyyyy. What’s he doing, your guy, where’s he? Yeah, I’ll bet he’s behaving, off with a bunch of dudes in Vegas. No one comes here to behave, I’ll tell you that much. Marceline was drunk now. She was on this ride, mildly amused, mildly annoyed. She wanted to see which side eventually won out. Oh well, she’s my second wife. Yeah, here look. Stunning, right? Keeps it tight, does a lot of that Pilates, hiking. She’s fit. A little too into the bullshit that’s around LA, if you know what I mean. The green juice. The hills, the cars, all that. But I gave all of that to her so I guess I’m at fault huh? Created a monster. And we, yeah I mean. You know what they say. That whole, you show me a beautiful woman and I’ll show you a man who’s sick of fucking her. Hey, hey I didn’t make up that saying. We’ve talked about bringing in a third but, I don’t know. Don’t look at me like that, I’m not hitting on you. You’re not even my type, really. You know how much sugar is in those tiki drinks you keep sucking back? A lot of you kids, your age, are opening up their relationships which I don’t know….must be nice…. At some point, they moved to another bar. She didn’t really remember agreeing to it, or getting into a car, and Uber, what even was it? She blinked the stalks of bamboo and the looming voodoo faces had melted and now they were sitting in an oxblood velvet booth facing each other, and a dirty martini sat in front of her, sweating onto the table. Her feet were propped up on the bench next to Steve, and he was rubbing her calves. She felt separated from her body, which is a nice thing that being drunk does sometimes. The annoyance won out from the amusement and was growing, like hives in her belly. Like bees. She had to be careful, she thought. That club in London. Blackouts could be dangerous for girls. She licked the smooth rim of the glass, knowing that her fingers would swell like stuck baby pigs from the salt the next morning. Was he still talking about interior design? Modern minimalism is about open air and choosing pieces that are expensive and take up a lot of space emotionally without actually taking up a lot of space. You don’t know about that eh, New York girl? What, do you guys sleep on bunk beds? We were actually in Architectural Digest for the Malibu house, hold on, let me show you. A blurry phone screen. Two blonde teenagers, a willowy woman in linen pants and beige hair, Steve, leaning against a wooden railing standing in a row in front of one of a clearly very expensive beach house. “That’s so nice, Steve,” she said. Steven. We were featured again actually, but in a much smaller article. The bathroom. You ever experience one of those rainfall shower heads? I bet you’d like that. We used to fuck in that shower, when we first bought it. I’m telling you, it goes away. Like, I look at her, and I know she’s beautiful, but I don’t feel it in my body anymore, you know? Like she became a separate thing. Like an armchair. “That’s real sad, Steve.” Another martini appeared in front of her. Her fingertips started to itch, and the backs of her knees and inside. Steven. I know what you’re doing with that. I know what kind of girl you are. You need someone to knock you upside the head then fuck you raw, every once and a while. Your attitude, I can tell no one has done that in a while. Jesus, relax. I’m kidding. Anyway, here’s a picture of the bathroom. Those light fixtures? We had them imported from Iceland. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to convince himself he wasn’t trying to sleep with her, while very actively and pretty aggressively, trying to sleep with her. You don’t gamble, do you? One time my buddy and I (he actually plays for The Lakers, we built his house, I can’t actually say who he is), spent three days gambling, doing blow, and partying with these super-hot Belizean women who were staying at The Venetian. Whoo, that was a wild weekend. I almost had to get fucking tested after that shit, you know? Marceline blinked, and they were in a hotel room. The room was stunning, the kind you see in rap videos or big budget films about...hangovers. Huge and sprawling, with a sunken white leather couch and a golden chandelier. Did she hear a babbling brook somewhere? She shook her head, trying to shake the deep dizziness that came from inside. And her fingers, they wouldn’t stop itching. And he wouldn’t stop talking. Just a constant, nonstop stream of words. What in God’s name was he like during sex? She could imagine wet, sloppy, pointy kisses and deep thrusts that threatened to break through her cervix. She felt a bubble of bile and brine slide up into her mouth from her stomach. And she was so thirsty. She would have done anything for some water. And the itching. It was almost unbearable with the talking. Should I slip into a robe and we can play a little Weinstein? Haha, obviously I’m just kidding, relax. Yes, I know he’s a creep, obviously. You’re not one of those girls who can’t take a joke, are you? Jeez, you can’t say anything these days. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I don’t want to have sex with you. You’re just here. You’re the one that followed me. I barely suggested it. You can go. I don’t care. You don’t think I’ve had more chances in my lifetime to cheat on my wife? I’ll make us a little something from the mini bar. Even though it’s insane how they charge you for even lifting a mini bottle of champagne. Oh nice, my company actually worked for them once. We literally built their offices. Nice guys. Jeez, you look so stiff. Take your coat off, make yourself comfortable. That look on your face….Jesus, you’re not one of those girls who overreacts about everything, are you? You can’t say anything anymore. You can go. I told you, I have zero interest in fucking you. I wouldn’t be mad if I saw you naked right now, but... Haha, joke, Jesus. Marceline let out a giant, deep breath that shook her from head to toe. She had blinked and moved again, but this time, she was still in the hotel. Just on the other side of the room, behind the couch. Her fingers weren’t itching anymore. Just...tingly. Like the end of a yoga class, after you lay in corpse pose and slowly wake your appendages up. And the noise… it had stopped. Her ears were ringing. The pins and needles pricked and deepened, and she looked down to realize she was holding something. Silver. Serrated. And razor sharp. A steak knife that had been thrown onto a room service tray by the TV when she last saw it. And her hand was….dripping. She stared over Steve’s jerking body with the wash of feeling you get after getting a really productive massage. A release, the feeling of letting go and being in control all at once. Her ears were ringing, and she realized it had been so long since she had heard silence. His hand reached out for her leg, but she just stared at him until he stopped moving. She thought of the plump meat that lived inside the wilting white dress shirt before her. Firm and filled like the olives she loved. She wondered how much time it took for all the life to drain out of each organ. How long until the white carpet turned crimson. Marceline stretched and wiggled a little, an elation filling her. She smiled, a slow and languid peace sliding over her like a weighted blanket. Marceline let her tongue snake up the river of sticky rubies that was quickly staining the web between her thumb and forefinger. It was warm, and deep, and would dry slowly. She felt visceral, sexy, and very deeply alive. Like she had exorcised something, released something, that had been lurking inside of her for a long, long time. She couldn’t wait to take another bubble bath when she returned to the room. And this time, she would feel guilty about nothing. And she wouldn’t feel a shred of nervousness walking alone down the Strip. We can be dangerous too, she thought. Golden strands of sunlight that could be mistaken for fine jewelry dangled through the thick Mandalay Bay hotel curtains when Marceline got back to her room. She luxuriated in a bath that quickly turned the color of cranberry tea, then passed out in the swathing, bulging mountains of her comforter, lulled to sleep by the dulcet tones of some reality show on her laptop. She only barely noticed when her fiancé tiptoed in, gently closed her screen, and crawled inside to kiss her good night. Lyz Mancini is a writer living in Catskill, NY. She is a beauty copywriter for brands like Clinique, and has written personal essays for Slate, HerSTRY, XOJane, Bustle, and Huffington Post. She is a Pitch Wars 2020 and Tin House Winter Workshop 2022 alum and is represented for her fiction by Victoria Marini of Irene Goodman Literary Agency.

Call me anytime. What else is there to say to the friend who reveals they plan to marry an addict careering toward self-destruction? Who is going in, eyes open? I love you. I'm here for you. I want more for you. I wish you loved yourself more or thought you deserved better. I'm watching you walk into flame. Your friend is drawn to flame singeing herself again and again on women who would consume a house in minutes, whole hillsides gone. You have become practiced at salving burns, standing by with cool compresses, quiet words. Do you know what it's like to love what will consume you? Do you have what it takes to love someone who does? Prepare more clean, worn towels. Set your face in a look of understanding. Rock-bottom When she crashed your car and finally went in-patient, you wondered whether she would have found her way here sooner without you as dam holding back what threatens to pull you both under. You are the addict and you are the woman who loves her. You are the house and the house fire. You understand what it is to black out on your desires to become them. And you know what it is to forgive yourself again and again to welcome yourself home. Amy Katherine Cannon is a writer and writing teacher living in Los Angeles. She received her MFA from UC Irvine and is the author of the chapbook "the interior desert" (Californios Press) and the mini-chapbook "to make a desert" (Platypus Press). Her work can be found in Bone Bouquet, LETTERS, LIT, and Rock & Sling, among other places.

Interrupted Sonnet you are cricket calling flashlight / lamp / against the damp grass — night air / dark eye balling into the hands of trees silhouette / you play with your hair / on the phone interrupt each other / the love of a cherry pit / seed dark the sink is filling the tub filling the pet-insults / we call each other & still into the arms you drop your body, then several books & then ask for love — like a bird or a dog in a circle you are made of the things you love — are doused — the mashing of your affections — like wine makers they squish underfoot / are bottled / then poured moon song moon lifts us up married outright orphan at night licks the strings imitates love making fakes orgasms for pitch tortures the tips of the fingers sheds skin / condom skin Uranus shifts its orbit shelters its pulp / face / Uranus always mending in pleading / wounds / with old time folk music banjo / fiddle / intermingling in air & Phoebe Sings “you’re holding me like water in your hands” Michael Buebe (he/him) is a poet from Galesburg Illinois. Author of "little spider cage (erotic velvet)" a microchapbook from Ghost City Press (summer 2022). He has work out & forthcoming in: Common Ground Review's Annual Poem Contest (honorable mention 2021), TIMBER, Lover's Eye Press, Drunk Monkeys, Jenny, Masque & Spectacle, and Prometheus Dreaming. You may find him on Twitter @MichaelBuebe.

We are standing next to the car, and the sky is an open wound, misty and oozing, shades of pink beginning to interrupt the bruised gray. Across the parking lot is a Dunkin Donuts, still open, despite having been beaten by a storm, grazed by a tornado. We are clutching oversized cups of iced coffee, the baby is sleeping in the backseat, and I am taking small drags off a cigarette. It is May, but it is also fifty degrees in the middle of the day, and we live in a place where both of these things can be true at once. You are looking at me with this shaded look, as if to say: I can’t believe we made it through that. But when you open your mouth to talk, instead you say: the guy inside said the roof got blown off a Dunkin ten miles away. And for some inexplicable reason we both bubble up with laughter at the image of this, of a drive-through line like a bumpy snake, and people demanding their blended coffees while the roof of the Dunkin begins to fracture and ultimately disappears, and still, people are waiting for their coffee, hands outstretched to workers who know they have no choice but to continue grinding and blending and pouring. You don’t say it but I will: I can’t believe we just drove through a tornado. And you nod slowly while you sip your drink, and I wonder if your hands were shaking while we drove, when we couldn’t see shit out the windshield, when my hands were shaking in my lap, and I was thinking about how five hours ago we had been half-naked, swimming in a natural pool of mountain water, the sun unstoppable until it was ultimately silenced. Upstate New York showed its belly with its dank humidity while we walked the streets of Woodstock. Too early for the summer season, but warm enough out to enjoy, we had lunch at a small cafe and bar, and the hail slapped at the windows, and everyone rushed up to look at it in awe, like we had never seen ice before. And when we left the cafe, it was there, in piles on the corner, and I saw a homeless man kick at it; we were all in wonder of the weather. We had somehow come out on the other side of it all, the wavering trees and blurred hazard lights of the cars in front of us. You had navigated through the storm slapping the mountainside around, this natural phenomenon taking everyone by surprise. And now here we are, like nothing really happened, in a parking lot of a Dunkin, allowing our bones to relax before we begin the drive back to Brooklyn. I felt myself changing through the storm, it was all imprinting itself on my brain. And months later - years later - I’ll be left with this chilly memory of being pulled over on the side of road, cars in front and behind us, as everyone makes the decision to stay put. This sense of pause that existed in the space of those moments; the collective understanding that the weather was greater than all of us, could swallow us up whole in the throat of a funnel of wind, and maybe if we just stopped, barely visible hazards blinking in a steady rhythm, it would spare us. On our way to this Dunkin, we tried to circumvent the endless line of cars making their way down the mountain. But every side street was cut off by flayed trees, their massive trunks a road block. Sometimes it was a power lines, like a nest of rattlesnakes in someone’s yard, and everyone was standing outside with their hands on their hips, looking up and down the road, shaking their heads at the cars like us who were trying to find an escape. And all I really wanted to do when we were driving around this post-apocalyptic landscape was to put my mouth on you, wrap you up against me in the backseat of the car, and feel the warmth of your body against mine. I didn’t want to go back to Brooklyn; I wanted to salvage the trees and build a house here, this place just outside of Woodstock, somewhere I couldn’t name, but didn’t care to, as if the name would break the spell. The storm had cleansed me in some way, and as we stand across from each other in the parking lot, your eyes wandering somewhere over my shoulder, I wonder if you felt the change as well, if your soul was a little cleaner, your brain a little more focused, and I wonder if you thought about finding a home after the chaos, in me, with me; all I want is for you to want to build your home around me.

Off Ramp This wasn’t the exit I wanted. This a scattered merge away from where everyone else is headed. This one abrupt. This one crept up, appeared, no sign, unnumbered, not on the map. It lingered then. Wouldn’t take. Kept appearing. Couldn’t shake off potential of miles ahead. Couldn’t handle a rest to the side. The deciding seems choiceless, like a must—all routes seem to end in collision. Distracted by a voice and a promise now insincere. Terms decided on cruise control to pass by on-ramps and overpasses but to an advantage. Now we’re too far gone. There’s no going back. Falling Towards Where We Don’t Want To Go Again I am sad for so many reasons I cannot name. Lightbulbs shatter in bad packaging— too many to choose from in the aisle. An overwhelming task—numb in the hardware store. How many heartbreaks does it take to screw in a lightbulb? How many weeks to get unscrewed. Candles can’t replace false light. They cause more body wracking, offer more to shiver at— snuffed out. What’s lost in a church pew. What’s admitted inside a confessional. At shoreline, foam. On a precipice, wind. Concave mirrors. Knotted hair. It’s all too much to have to conjure up every single time. We Eat The Dead One becomes a simple fraction of the other Names baked up into the bread War happens every so often Hunger strikes forts in a cold then wool coats in summer Taste each name up on a green hill when cloud cover dissipates Make do with what is in reach at the time They had graves and stones so they took in a span of years and a legacy of last words no longer planted at the head but knocked down to keep a precious life going a little bit longer at the least to outlast the other side if only by a moment. Christina M. Rau is the author of What We Do To Make Us Whole, the Elgin Award-winning Liberating The Astronauts, and two poetry chapbooks. She serves as Poet in Residence for Oceanside Library (NY) and was 2020 Walt Whitman Birthplace Poet of the Year. Her poetry occasionally airs on Destinies radio show (WUSB) and appears in various literary journals. When she's not writing, she's teaching yoga or watching the Game Show Network.http://www.christinamrau.com

Black Racers (Single Ladies) Along the trail that leads to the river, I come upon a pit of black racers— all writhing in a slithering sex ball. The scaly, onyx orgy disperses as I approach, flailing away out of sight, leaving behind only the mating pair. He thinks himself an anaconda— truthfully, he’s more like a young, clumsy boy fumbling to tie his shoelaces. Her vacant stare confirms it—what I mean is I’m sorry, ladies. Being you seems so exhausting, and it’s really not your fault. Jays Sparrow’s sweet birdsong became cries of dread. Two blue dragoons, riding skyward, they came. The Blue Jays dove down to devour the bread. They touched down in the snow and cocked their heads. With two savage squawks, the Jays laid their claim. Sparrow’s sweet birdsong became cries of dread. She could not defend, so she flapped and fled. Each hollow wing beat rose anger and shame. The Blue Jays dove down to devour the bread. Sparrow turned ‘round—of bravery misled. The Jays set upon her slight birdly frame. Sparrow’s sweet birdsong became cries of dread. The blood-rusted snow was feathered with red. Sparrow did thrust and a Jay she did maim. The Blue Jays dove down to devour the bread. Sparrow lay dying, and one Jay lay dead. One Blue Jay stayed, eating—flightless and lame. Sparrow’s sweet birdsong became cries of dread. The Blue Jays dove down to devour the bread. Chubby His old, leather collar leads me to cry. It still smells like him, even though it's been ten years since I took poor Chubby to die. I found him curled up in the closet by her white dress, laying limp-legged and thin. Tugging his collar, I begged him to try. But cold truth lurked in his nebulous eyes. His sad, grieving mother kissed his gray chin and then sighed. Our dog was ready to die. With one careful caress, she said goodbye. One last country drive stole one final grin, but heavy, his collar. Old Chubby cried. Pass peacefully, pup—it’s just you and I. Life pushes out as the pink pushes in. Vacant, his collar still leads me to cry. That was the day I took Chubby to die. Jess Levens is a poet and photographer who lives with his wife, sons and dogs in New England, where he draws inspiration from the region’s landscapes and history. His poetry has been published in The Dillydoun Review and Prometheus Dreaming. Jess is a Marine Corps veteran and Northeastern University alum.

Most publishers will want to see three to five blurbs on your book jacket (also known as “advance acclaim”). Writers, perhaps wincing in advance at the spectre of more rejection, are often reluctant to ask for assistance, particularly when it involves self-promotion. Here are some ideas about who might be more likely to be helpful and courteous: * editors who have published your writing or a poem inside your current oeuvre; * an author for whom you’ve done a favor recently or, at the least, who has shared some pleasant past history, e.g., being on the same panel, chatting with you after a reading, etc.; * a former instructor who is well-published in the same field; * an author who is either published by the same house or a mutual friend of a writer; * an author who has written on the same subject; * members of your critique group; * writers’ associations that count you as a member. Don’t fret if too many agree to do it. You can always select which blurbs go inside the book, on your website, and on press releases. When I received eight blurbs for my chapbook of erotic verses “Concupiscent Consumption” [Red Ferret Press, 2020], praise from notable poets went on the back cover, compliments from my editors were ushered inside. It may be worth mentioning that if someone does take the time to pen a cover quote, it’s rude not to use it. What if the blurb sounds lame? Revise it and send it back for approval before using it. I’ve often done this and have yet to meet anyone who resents sounding more quotable on a book jacket. Warming up the “ask”: remind the author that you are familiar with their writing and refresh the person’s memory about any shared connections or experiences, for example, you reviewed the writer’s first book. Also, explain why a quote from this person will be meaningful. Be respectful of time constraints: give a brief description of what your book is about, include a sample, and indicate if you can provide your book via .pdf, hard copy, etc. Be specific and professional: indicate what date you will need the comments by and mention that some of their credits can accompany this quote. Afterward, always thank each person who made time to read and support your work with a quote. Offer to send a note along with a signed copy of your published book. (I always ask first if they would like my book; some will decline.) Pay it forward by promoting their books on your social media channels, posting a review of their books on Amazon, GoodReads, etc. Be a good literary citizen by supporting other writers in their journey. Native New Yorker LindaAnn LoSchiavo, a Pushcart Prize, Rhysling Award, and Dwarf Stars nominee, is a member of SFPA, The British Fantasy Society, and The Dramatists Guild. Elgin Award winner "A Route Obscure and Lonely," "Concupiscent Consumption," and "Women Who Were Warned" are her latest poetry titles. Forthcoming: "Messengers of the Macabre" by Nat. 1, L.L.C. [Fall 2022] and a tombstone-heavy collection in hardcover by Beacon Books.

He grew up in Poland, a Catholic childhood with a proclivity for stoicism; pious, ascetic, the gift of intellect and his rock-hard work ethic defining an otherwise ordinary life. He would go on to emigrate and assimilate and father children and achieve the American Dream, pulling so hard on his bootstraps that he had the luxury of losing tens of thousands to Bernie Madoff without it mattering at all, so many years down the road. But first came the war. He left home. He joined the Polish army. He defended his country with honor. He was captured by the Russians. A prisoner-of-war, a hostage, an object as autonomous as a classroom pet constantly harassed by overenthusiastic schoolchildren. A prisoner-of-war, collateral, a dead man walking at the mercy of the Allied Powers, a life in the hands of those who do not regard it as such. A prisoner-of-war, a scapegoat, a pawn in the geopolitical chess game between Freedom and Fascism. He was really just a math professor from Warsaw. A prisoner-of-war, he was held with soldiers from all over Europe. A prisoner-of-war, he lived with them in squalor and learned their mother tongues. A prisoner-of-war, he spoke Polish and German and Russian by the time he escaped, only to be recaptured by the Americans and thrown back into captivity. It was his brain that saved him. While loose lips were sinking ships and babies were storming French beaches and nations were choosing guns over butter, he was fighting to stay alive. He translated for American guards, babies themselves with no stake in this war, deciphering a cacophony of language from dozens of different origins which must have echoed throughout their prison like the pounding of waves. A postmodern town crier in a cellblock of strangers, he relayed messages from the inmates and communicated directives from their captors; he was too useful to kill. They paid him in cigarettes. He traded cigarettes for privileges for allowances for food for anything to help him hang on for even one more day. So when he was released, when the world was once again safe for Democracy, when he moved to Austria, when he met a nice Czech girl, when he proposed by the fountain where Sound of Music was filmed, when he took her through Ellis Island, when he built a family in America, when my mother was born, he already knew how to speak English. But – for as long as I knew my grandfather – he never did smoke any cigarettes. Shannon Frost Greenstein (she/her) resides in Philadelphia with her children and soulmate. She is the author of “These Are a Few of My Least Favorite Things”, a full-length book of poetry available from Really Serious Literature, and “An Oral History of One Day in Guyana,” a fiction chapbook forthcoming with Bullsh*t Lit. Shannon is a former Ph.D. candidate in Continental Philosophy and a multi-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her work has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Pithead Chapel, Bending Genres, and elsewhere. Follow Shannon at shannonfrostgreenstein.com or on Twitter at @ShannonFrostGre.

There was nowhere for me to go when I aged out of Bell County Baptist Children's Home, but I didn't care. They gave me a list of job openings on my last day there, but I didn't want a job. Jobs are for losers. I was going to be the next Carl Kidwell. Carl aged out of Baptist three years before I did and became a legend. The newspapers said that within a six month period Carl scored over $100,000 from nine banks throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. He died in a hail of police gunfire at the First Fed in Corbin during his tenth bank robbery. I was determined to be just like him—minus the twenty bullet holes, of course. Todd, Chuck, and Danny said I could stay with them in the abandoned mobile home they were squatting in. Danny was the only one from the Baptist Children's Home, Todd and Chuck were high school dropouts. We had a two acre trash-strewn lot all to ourselves, but no electricity or running water. "Just shit and piss over there behind the Dart," Chuck said, pointing to an engine-less old Dodge Dart up on cinder blocks in the back corner of the lot. There wasn't even an outhouse, just turds and toilet paper on the ground. But who cares? I was out of the orphanage and had my freedom, for the most part. My first day there Todd and Chuck laid down the house rules: Keep my face clean shaven, my hair trimmed, my clothes clean. If you look like a hillbilly, you'll get treated like one. We wanted to avoid scrutiny, not broadcast ourselves like a bunch of patch-wearing outlaws. Made sense to me. Todd and Chuck made for an odd couple; Todd with movie star good looks and pug-nosed Chuck with a circus strong-man's hairy physique. Danny told me how lucky he and I were—Todd was an expert house breaker and Chuck could strip a car in a just a few hours, and they were willing to take us under their wings. Neither of them had ever been busted by the law, although Chuck had been interrupted while stealing a cache of bootleg liquor from the back of a general store in Harlan. A single punch knocked the store owner unconscious, but they had to stay out of Harlan for a while after that. Danny and I were assigned the easy stuff at first, shoplifting from grocery stores and assisting Todd and Chuck when needed. And at first, things were going fine. Then along came Sarah and things got complicated. * * * I'm not really sure what it is about rich kids that make them want to rebel and run away and pretend to be desperate. Is it wealth and privilege guilt? A longing for a sense of adventure, that their lives aren't enough? But Danny had Sarah sitting in the car with him when Todd came out of the funeral reception that they'd crashed to swipe jewelry, prescription pills, and whatever else they could find. Sarah was a niece of the decedent—a rich trucking company owner whose funeral had been announced in the newspapers. Todd had sent Danny out to the car to wait until he could get away from a chatty old woman who'd cornered him in conversation about Jesus and salvation. When he finally broke free, Danny was waiting in the passenger side of the Thunderbird and Sarah was in the back seat. Todd opened the back door and tried to yank Sarah out, but he gave up under the ferocity of Sarah's defensive kicking. When the three of them got back and walked into the trailer, Chuck and I looked at them in astonishment until Chuck pointed his finger at Sarah and roared at Todd, "What the fuck is she doing here?" "I need a place to stay, Ham Hock," Sarah said, dropping her duffel to the floor. "Y'all owe me, robbing my aunt's house and all." "How old are you? Anybody gonna be looking for you?" Chuck asked her. "Ain't nobody gonna be missing me. I'm eighteen." Sarah took the smallest room in the trailer as her own after throwing out the trash and junk we'd been tossing in there. She was pretty—perfect alabaster skin, hair tinted with pinkish red highlights cut into an angled bob, petite and muscular as a gymnast. But it wasn't her looks that enthralled me, it was her strut, her attitude. Nights when we'd pass the bottle and smoke the weed, she didn't seem the least bit scared or intimidated to be alone with a bunch of young men. She verbally slapped down any male chauvinism with quick wit but could just as easily show maternal caring with gentle words. When she was in high school she used to fill black capsules with ground up No Doz and sell them as Black Beauties. She was pulling in a hundred bucks a week and she didn't even need the money. Before Sarah had even been there a week, she seemed to have disappeared. She came back a day later, pulling a red Radio Flyer loaded with canned food, Fritos, sodas, a socket set, and a display rack of disposable lighters. Chuck demanded to know where she'd gotten it. She wouldn't tell him. "Don't worry about it, Ham Hock," she told him. "Y'all been sitting around on your lazy asses all week, somebody's gotta bring home the bacon." Danny and I just watched in amused admiration. Chuck fumed. Todd fell head over heels and made little effort to disguise it. Todd's talent was home break-ins, and he was fucking good at it. He seemed to always know the perfect time to strike. It was if he had a sixth sense for where the valuables would be inside any given home and zero right in on them. Not even the dogs would bark at him. And now that he had Sarah to impress, he wanted to really step up his game. But he would need an assistant to do it. No, not Sarah, he couldn't trust her to pull of a burglary, not yet. Chuck was too big to fit through windows and too impatient and prone to senseless vandalism. Not Danny, he was to timid. He picked me to go with him. It would serve a double purpose for me—I would learn from and surpass the best, and I'd become a legend and get the girl. Sarah and I would be the next Bonnie and Clyde. Or so I hoped. I'd still have to contend with Todd's male-model good looks. I wasn't expecting it when it came. Todd just nudged me awake one night and jerked his thumb toward the door. He explained to me in the Thunderbird that we were going to a two-story brick mansion in Wasioto set back from the highway, ironically just a short walk from the sheriff's home. He backed up the driveway, around the side of the house, and parked between the back door and a swing set. It astonished me how quick he gained entry with his improvised screwdriver/crowbar tool that fit between the door jamb, the strike plate, and the latch. I was disappointed when he told me to wait there just outside the door. Within a couple of minutes he came back with a mop bucket filled with whiskey and wine bottles. He told me to load them in the trunk and bring the bucket back. When I got back to the door he handed me a laundry hamper full of watches, jewelry, a pistol, and a box of ammo. We went on repeat for about fifteen minutes and when we were done the trunk and backseat of the Thunderbird were bulging with loot. As we drove back down US Highway 119 we went by a Chevy Suburban coming in the opposite direction. "Holy fucking shit," Todd said. "What?" I asked. "That was Glatstein. They came back earlier than I thought. That was fucking close." * * * The Glatstein job was Todd's biggest at the time. We drank for days on the liquor, but we went through the $500 cash in no time flat. We sold the bank statements and social security cards to a friend of Chuck's in Knoxville. We divided up the loot, but Todd gave a special little gift to Sarah; a sapphire and diamond tennis bracelet. She thanked him and he shyly said It's not like we're married or anything like a schoolboy with a crush. It became readily apparent I was going to have to accelerate my learning curve if I didn't want to be regarded as a beta. Still, I was the only one Todd wanted along with him on his jobs. We hit two houses over the next two months that got us hauls nearly as big as the Glatstein job. Then we hit the mother lode. The house was barely more than a shack, obviously occupied by a hoarder. It was the first time Todd had me go inside with him, he needed me to help clear the junk and look for anything worth taking. In the corner of the bedroom behind mounds of clothing Todd found a dozen manila envelopes, all stuffed with cash. Damn near fifty thousand dollars worth as we found out after we got back home and counted it. "Damn!" Chuck said. "If I'd known having a girl around would make you this good, I'd of brought a bitch in here a year ago!" We partied the whole night, talked about what we could do with the money, Todd repeating his story on how he knew that shack had something good in it, Todd lighting Sarah's cigarettes for her, pouring her drinks for her, complimenting her hair color even though it was too dark to really see it in our electricityless trailer. I made eye contact with her as often as I could in the dark, but kept my mouth shut. And I could tell by the way she looked back, it was me, not Todd, that was going to win her affections. I got up off the floor a little before noon the next day and decided that the first thing I'd buy with my share of the money would be a fucking bed. Goddam, my back hurt. I staggered out to go take a piss and thought I heard something from behind the dump-truck bed on the other side of the lot. I peeked around it to see Sarah's combat boots in the air and Chuck's hairy ass pumping up and down between her legs. All of a sudden I didn't have to piss anymore. Todd was coming out of the trailer as I was going back in. My face must have betrayed something because he said "What?" when he saw me. I yanked my thumb in the direction of the dump bed. He went over—his reaction was the same as mine. That very night Todd took me with him to go hit another house, but he pulled off to the side of the highway and started nipping at a vodka bottle. "I know you like her too," he said. "But I'm gonna win her fair and square. No hard feelings, okay?" We sat there for an hour in silence passing the bottle back and forth, but in the second hour I started refusing it. I didn't think it was a good idea to be drinking this heavily before hitting a house, but I thought I would be stepping out of line to say anything. When we'd been sitting there almost three hours I asked him if we were going to hit a house. He got out of the car without answering me, so I followed him. He stumbled a little as he walked. We left the Thunderbird out in the open on the side of the highway. I should've questioned all this. I didn't. He walked off onto a single lane paved road past one house, then another, and then stopped in front of a large clapboard home with a neatly trimmed lawn. "What do you think?" he asked me. What the fuck was he asking me for? He always planned out what we were going to hit ahead of time. But he was the master—I couldn't question him and I damn sure wasn't going to tell him whether or not it was a good house to hit. He walked right up on the front porch, not bothering with stealth, I stopped at the porch stairs. "Wait here," he said. His voice was slurred. He sliced the window screen, slid the window aside, climbed in and fell over the sill. I couldn't believe all the noise he was making, but I still had faith that he knew what he was doing. I waited as usual. The car was about a two or three minute walk away. The pop of the gunshot was enough to make me jump, but Todd's hideous scream caused me to lose control of my bladder. His scream was completely silenced in short order by a second gunshot. I couldn't use the car to get away—Todd had the keys with him. I ran back to the storm drainage ditch that paralleled the highway and made my way back to the trailer as fast as I could through all the brush. It took until a little after dawn the next morning, my progress slowed after an eastern racer bit my ankle. There were three Bell County Sheriff's Office vehicles with lights flashing all around our little home. I just slid back down in the ditch and massaged the snake bite while I tried to come up with a plan for what to do next. * * * It turns out that the FBI had us under intermittent surveillance and a few hours after the homeowner shot Todd, the FBI contacted the Sheriff's Office to let them know where our trailer was and who we were. They cuffed and stuffed Chuck, Danny, and Sarah before tearing the place up and cataloging all the stolen shit. A sheriff's deputy picked me up behind Hall's Grocery later that afternoon as I was having a meal of Doritos and cherry Coke. My lower leg was swelled up like a butter churn, but he wouldn't get me an ambulance because the bite wasn't venomous. After they figured out I was with Todd when he got shot, they told me I would be charged with his murder—unless I testified against Chuck. There was also an implication that they would not let me see a doctor for my now-infected snake bite unless I agreed. I agreed. Although I didn't know it at the time (we were all separated in the jail), Danny and Sarah also agreed to testify against Chuck. When I finally got my copy of the case documents, it looked like they were charging him with every car stolen within the last ten years within a thousand miles. When the day came to testify, Chuck glared at me from the defendants table as I sat in the witness stand spilling it all. Sarah wasn't there, she didn't have to testify. Her parents paid for her lawyer and got her her own deal. Chuck got a twelve year sentence; Danny and I got time served. * * * So much for my plans to be a big fucking legend. My first job when I got out of jail was cutting dark fire tobacco in Tennessee. After the end of the season I came back to Bell County, Kentucky and tried to get a job at a wildcat coal mine, but the fucker looked at my name on the application and told me they don't hire rats. I finally got a job in Middlesboro washing dishes at Joanie's Pizza and Burgers, but Joanie keeps 10% of my pay or she'll tell my probation officer I was stealing out of the cash register. One more year of this shit. I wasn't sure if it was her or not, a little plumper, no dye in her hair, walking in through the door with a little rug rat clinging to her leg. I went out into the dining room on my break, and sure enough it was Sarah. Her kid was the spitting image of ugly Chuck. I slid in the booth across the table from her, pointing at her pack of smokes on the table and asked if I could have one. She slid the pack over to me. I asked her if Chuck was out of prison yet. "Don't know," she said. "Does he even know he's a daddy?" I asked, pointing my cigarette at her kid playing with the free toy that comes with kid's meals. "Nope." I blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. "Heard from Danny?" "Heard about him." "What?" I asked after she finished chewing a mouthful of pizza. "He's doing fifteen years in Eddyville. The Hurley brothers gave him a .32 and told him to hold up the Texaco in Pineville. The clerk shot him in the back as he was leaving through the front door. He's paralyzed from the waist down." "I guess I better get back to work," I said, jabbing the cigarette out in the flimsy tin ashtray. "That police report on you and Todd was pretty fucked up. Todd really tied up that couple?" The police report was full of lies made to make Todd look as bad as possible. It said he held the married couple in the house at knifepoint, tied them up, and then ransacked the house. Then it claimed the husband freed himself, retrieved his pistol and told Todd to get out of the house, but Todd charged him forcing the homeowner to shoot. "Let me tell you what happened to Todd," I said, taking another cigarette from her pack. I told her about us seeing her behind the dump bed with Chuck, Todd falling into a lovesick depression, and then breaking into the house while drunk—getting shot ten seconds after falling through the front window. Joanie gave me a dirty look from across the dining room floor as she wiped down a table, letting me know break time was over. Sarah noticed it, too. The old Sarah would've zapped me with some humiliating zinger about being a minimum wage pizza boy. I probably would've felt better if she did. Hugh Blanton is the author of A Home to Crouch In. He has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, As It Ought To Be, and other places. He can be reached on Twitter @HughBlanton5

…the man and the woman live without speaking. They’ve turned their attention elsewhere. In the spare room, the woman feeds calciworms to her largest bearded dragon. The sticky tip of its tongue tickles against her palm. The others wait in their vivariums, and she sees herself reflected in their clear bright eyes. She will scoop one up, making sure to support its legs, and the weight of its body will rest against her heart. In the loft, the man adjusts the thermostat so that his lavender Dendrobium orchids can gather themselves to bloom. They blush gently in their specially diffused light and scent the air with the papery smell of baby powder. He checks their leaves for scorch and presses the buttons to play ‘Isn’t she lovely’ for encouragement. He bobs his head to the upbeat. In the bathroom, the woman changes the water in her musk turtle tank while the filtration unit whirrs. She sweeps away fragments of bitter uneaten duckweed, she checks their UVB light bulb. Their blackish-brown shells glisten. The man keeps his toothbrush and washcloth by the kitchen sink. In the kitchen, the man mists the leaves of his bird’s nest ferns. He checks the roots and rotates the cool smooth pebbles that help keep them well- drained. The air around them is warm and moist against his skin, a tiny micro climate he’s created. The woman eats pizza in the paved over garden, under a rusted beach umbrella when it rains. In the nursery, the cot sits in pieces, the Babygro’s stay wrapped in the room where the words were last spoken. In the silence, Stevie Wonder croons ‘we have been heaven blessed’. The bearded dragons blink, the orchids sway. And in the kitchen and in the bathroom, the man and the woman rest their heads in their hands and quietly weep. Anita Goveas can be found on Twitter @coffeeandpaneer.