Coda

by P. L. Powell

Many of us

normal lives

underneath

            strangenesses.

A roof leaks.

An old couple

persists.

This is what

breathing becomes.

In the morning

another reason

on warm sheets.

An eclipse ends.

The moon remains.

crop circles in wood

by Lynne Hayes

i saw a man in the coffee-shop
he sat near the door,
feet moving
in that still-walking pattern
that said take me there
anywhere, somewhere.
observing his profile,
the unshaven jaw twitched
as if biting on an unsaid word.
i wondered if he would spit it out
or swallow with the next sip
of his dark Colombian.
i stared at the man by a door
waiting for an imminent departure
so my feet could rest
in the circles made
on an old wooden floor
taking me somewhere,
anywhere.

exiles

by John Grochalski

b.j. looks happy

in the window
of the new bar

drinking his bud

talking to don
who’s keeping watch
over the basket of cheez-its

when i walk in
it’s like the mayor
has shown up

shouts and pints lifted

i think
well, i’ve finally made it

but to where?

i take a seat next to b.j.

the new bartender
gets me a beer
after i tell him what i want

this is something that i haven’t
had to do on this street
in almost four years

i ask b.j. and don
what happened at rooney’s

but instead they tell me
where everyone else is drinking now

b.j. says
they want to have one
last go round at the old joint

but because it’s closed down
the cops will probably come
and cart us all off to jail

so it’s going
to be a picnic instead

everyone from the joint

their families
their kids

reunited

he says he’ll email me the details
when he knows for sure

then jr slaps me on my back
and starts to talk to me
about books

while i take a good pull
on my draft

look around

trying to remember
where the bathrooms are
in this new joint.

Picking the Bones Clean

by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

I should have known
that eventually you'd come slithering back
you crashed into my life
like a train wreck
and completely turned it upside-down;
fucked with my mind
screwed with my heart,
basically made me realize
that Satan is very much alive and well
and living in California
I must say the experience
really opened my eyes
and taught me a lesson I will never forget;
it's been a tough road,
but I'm a lot stronger because of it all
since then I've taught myself
how to pour alcohol directly into the wound
to help it heal,
notch the skin and suck out the venom
and build a barbed-wire fortress
around my heart
you managed to make quite an art
of emotional and psychological torment;
one can only assume that you've experienced
more than your fair share of that
at some point in your past,
but what amazes me
is not only that you scraped my own plate clean
while casually picking the remnants out of your teeth,
but that you had the balls to come back
for seconds

The Sea

by Roger Butterfield

I wanted to be higher than you one time,
Not knowing
What that would mean.

Knowing hasn't changed much,
Only from where I'm looking.

The Short Story

by Brittany Fonte

SETTING: Many weeds grow green in the Mid Western wilds of cows and plains, mosquito-filled lakes and conservative politics. Wisconsin happily barters in cheese curds and whey (sown by serial killers), the twin Dakotas dapple in deer ticks, dust and durable durham wheat. My Minnesota, though, touts corn and soybeans, also gun racks, goys, and cheap ale. Ice fishing holes, sans crops, are stuffed with mammal heads and hookers as company-come-tail. I was raised here, shallow soil et al; “gay” meant “jolly,” only in the way it was used in famous Broadway musicals recreated at the local (Norwegian) rec center. Here, lefse is rolled as much as Mary Jane, and Mary Jane marries men.

CHARACTER: Mary Jane married three men, maybe high, but I hoped for more. I held Ellen a hero without a hampering cape, or male hormones. Nineteen and nit-witted, I coddled visions of karaoke love songs in my mind of minimal focus and tone deafness. Feeling powerful with temporary parental leave, and teenaged volcanic panties primed in electric shocks, I panted after—preyed— on pretty coeds without guilt, without redneck perceptions, concepts of “perversity,” or narrow-minded prattle. Until.

THEME: Until Eternity: This is what I promised her. I kissed her once, offered, “Until we meet again.” Until the clock struck twelve and my spring break curfew counted, I held her hips until the cows came... I thought of her driving home, got a speeding ticket from a dyke who couldn’t see me for who I wanted to be. I thought: Until the fat lady sings. Until the end. Later, I told my parents until I was blue in the face: I loved her. Juliet and Jolie-Pitt. They were silent. They wouldn’t accept it, not until Hell froze over. Sex equaled guilty until proven guilty.

POINT OF VIEW: Guilt from Her. Mom. The old-fashioned. The bigoted. The Christian Right. The Focus on the Family, not mine. The Majority. The Man. The Commandments. The hope for a grandchild. The neighbors and what they might say, have said, have seen over a privacy fence. The hurt I might contend with. The discrimination. The “phase.” The idea of tab A and slot B without silicone accoutrements. The slut. The family friends who will not accept me. The façade. The children with no father. There is, also, God.

PLOT: My God, Thanksgiving came gifting and I, riding shotgun in my mother’s shuttle van, thinking of tofu turkey and brown buttered biscuits (basic human rights) showed my cards: I shouted, “I’m in love. With a woman.” Torrential, tyrannical screams ensued, and then my ride was wrought with the most soundless of nauseated silence.

(
)

It was clear I would not break breads of bartering, then. There was not one loaf for all, and I had to bide my time until a foreign taxi could return me to sender, reset my sexuality, tally all of my wrongs as a child and all of my tuition costs.

CONFLICT: The cost is more than I have