By Claire Scott

Skulking around the perimeter of life wearing a
Mickey Mouse mask
and an oversized hoodie which I found in a dumpster outside
Denny’s
which doesn’t count as stealing does it?

I was raised with religion the eighth commandment and
fiery fingers
pulling you down which is why I sneak around so I
don’t draw the attention
of the devil on the label of Dave’s BBQ Sauce holding a
pitchfork
all the better to thrust you into the flames

what of my tenth grade teacher Mr. Hanson of halitosis
breath
who caught me cheating on the Algebra exam why
study
when Hannah is just one seat over who seems to care about
boats

floating upstream/downstream about x’s and y’s
the school expelled me [ex+pellere to drive away] my friends
forgot me
I learned to love flying solo on cocaine

then there’s my mother Freud had lots to say
about mothers but my mother was not the one at fault
although
she did pray loudly most of the day that I turn out better
that I clean the bathrooms that I make her cucumber
martinis

once I heard her call the police to see if there is some spot
where
you can sell a child or simply drop him off in front
of
the firehouse I hid in the hall closet but she is not the one
who made me turn out like this

what is this? this street walking sideswiping jobless loser
skulking
around the perimeter of life sleeping on sidewalks
with my stuffed dog, Spot, pretending he is really real
wrapped in a worn blanket
but a blanket is not a place

I am looking for a place where my name remembers me
a place with a different color sky.

By Gary Lawless

I

more hawks this year —

last night, an owl —

years ago, in Camden,

Bucky Fuller told us:

“There is no longer

any up or down —

now only in,

in and out”

always something

falling from the sky.

II

ravens, crows —

I flew to the moon —

bats, and owls —

I am flying through the sky

I am moving through the earth

dark birds, dark matter,

we are leaving and

we won’t be back.

By Bruce Parker

There is a field of absence since you left
whereon to begin a painting, if only one knew
where to put the first stroke, if one dared to take color
on one’s brush and begin, somehow. A canvas once vibrated
with coming strokes of color; now it lies like an empty field,
all that nourishes harvested, bare,
waiting for the plow to bite, for seed, for rain.
I hold my brush and hesitate, look over the
field of absence, search for a place for presence
to begin again. Since you left, where to begin?

By Uche Nduka

with the head
in the heart of
every broken little thing

some boobs catch
a rising colorist
never mind the shadow

then I turn on my heels
a wasp nest a quilted satin box
around the reeds around the peninsula

there are many things
a peach can teach

cumulus between sleeping
and waking
backward motion in forward motion

the back of a spoon
in the back of a room