by Jody Gladding

          to read this
                      I have to gather          the pages

              it’s called a signature

                it’s a book I’m
                                            working on the land

                     is posted

                     the spine is broken

      I’m writing its name

              in my own          hand

                                                                      ink on strips of bark
                                                                        6 x 18 inches

by Jody Gladding

Yes nesting but you didn’t come here
      for a sign
            in the slate there’s a deeper
                  question you can call
                        into     it’s a slow exchange
                              snow          melt
                                    I don’t think the rock’s a woman
                                          but the way this wall bleeds
                                                while you wait you can try to eat
a flake or two
      the task is mineral
            wasn’t that what you had in mind
                  when slate breathes you notice
                        the chill it’s a hundred years
                              since the quarry’s been
                                    worked     so
                                          time to plan
                                                well you can unearth
                                                      a pillow it’ll weigh
you     down          feathers
      couldn’t lift a wing
            if they weren’t hollow
                  listen
                        old element I may be
                              making this up —

                                                                               ink on an egg
                                                                               2½ x 1½ inches

by Oliver Rice

Suppose the doctor is running late.
Suppose, meanwhile, extrospective,
I cross the street, stroll into the park,
wishing to be in my sweats,
thinking all manner of squirrels,
of blackbirds and beetles,
have had their ecosystems here forever,
how in the human condition
some are apt to gain advantage
and some of those to abuse it.

Suppose my attention swings back to a man
seated there in a slouch hat,
scarf drawn about his chin.
Suppose I casually take the next bench,
thinking how improbably he could be Saul Bellow,

facing the skyline, just removed,

emitting
a syndrome,

ideograms,
unaccountable to the joggers, bikers, skaters,
emitting pictures
of old Chicago,
of American Paris,
of the Diaspora,
amorous persecutions,
calamities that start up the soul,

devious in his carpenter’s pants,
emitting guises
as the renegade humanist,
as the casualty of the human venture,

as the multiple, the justified, the tragicomic man,
the guerrilla against himself,
the victim, hysteric, charismatic, scourge,
the deluded narrator,
the gothic autobiographer
with a sensibility for almost anything,

overtaken by late modernity,
emitting voices,
rhapsodic, bumptious, confessional,
outraged by the philistines, the shrewd barbarians,
the banalities, the absurdities,
saying man’s natural predator is man,
saying the soul wants what it wants,
all postures are mocked by their opposites,
how the blood rushes to the psyche!

But, oho.
Suppose I receive intimations
that he senses my intrusions.
Suppose I fold my paper,
casually rise and stroll on,
thinking how improbably he could be Saul Bellow,

emitting a syndrome,
pictures of old Chicago,
guises,
voices,
voices.

by Cory McClellan

I can’t talk to you anymore,
annealing tunes of hypomania has made me thirsty.

Home remedies for cracked vermilion:
praying in the shower,
writing on wet paper,
mouthing kaleidoscope patterns.

I kissed you once when you were sleeping;
candy canes on fire,
stealing homes from honeybees.

This infatuation is just as much your fault as it is mine.
I thought you could change my lips into flowers.