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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.

She laces her cherry Docs and shuffles forward to knock A book tucked under her arm her heart ticking like a bomb Other side of that door is a mystery that will quickly become shared history She rubs at the mascara under her eye her eyes like stars dim in the winter sky A token in her pocket from a time before lies lies unwrapped by a time machine Her brain overthinking every promise sanguinely Not all stories have beginnings Nor endings Sometimes a middle is a killing Of a past in an unlit cave Even before they misbehaved And yet they build a new order They will be rooted in only what they foster No longer feeling like imposters in their own lives no need for detectives they unpack how they feel in luminous spaces no need to be suspicious because they become fresh air in broken lungs and tongue-tied laces Margot Stillings is a storyteller and cocktail napkin poet. She resembles a housecat most days: paws bare on hardwood floors and lounging in sunbeams.

I misheard write a tree poem, thought I’m not a tree person, I’m a bush person; I’m not a nature person, I’m a nurture person— which was what she wanted: words to help her sense love like baby talk she feeds her pug, more soft turns of phrase scented with cologne, a stanza or two on how she wears enchanting scarves & makes a tasty latte. She hopes to feel appreciated for her efforts. What choice but to give her what she wants.

Didn’t go to his funeral. Anxiety. Truthfully. Regretfully. I liked him. Counted out papers And betting slips Whilst the dog Lay black and Sunday lazy. Thin Until he quit smoking. When I returned From time away Was glad to see me around Chatted a good chat. Then one day he sat in a chair Mumbled nonsense And bled in his brain.