by James H. Schneider

Have you noticed how your voice sounds
in an empty house? Not in that pregnant
absence when your wife has gone to the store
and the kids are at school. I mean an emptiness
not just of family, but of furniture, clothes, books,
plates, an emptiness even of attic and basement.
An emptiness made more complete by a single screw
that, when you open a drawer, rumbles in a small arc.
Then, as you murmur while you wander a last time
through the hallways, you may hear a faint echo
of reading to a child at bedtime, soothing another,
saying ‘good boy’ to the dog, whispering words
of love to your wife. But that’s not all this emptiness
has to offer. Go ahead, scream or shout. No one
can hear. Whatever you utter, it means the same thing.

by Edward Dewar

What if I was mistaken?
I always assumed
it was my
Father’s book.
It took years for me

to work my way
far enough
into the room

so that I could open
the night table drawer.

I was sure it held secrets
or at least something
valuable. It joined

their twin
beds together.
It was dark
brown with a grainy

exterior and had
a chunky brass handle.
Initially the drawer stuck

but then it slid open.
Inside was a box
of condoms,
a broken

wristwatch
and Mario Puzo’s
novel with a couple

of dog–eared pages

by Edward Dewar

A little swagger is invaluable.
Improvise, slide
the valentine

under
that wooden
boundary

and she will
do the rest.

She’ll probably toss
a beat–up purple
Frisbee
close
to the fence,

scoop up
the valentine

and tuck it
under the rim.
Then walk right

past her father, like
nothing has happened.

by A.M. Kennedy

I don’t want to fill the plate up with fishbones, I tell Allison at the
feast
She nods and pushes the lemon cake across to me.
I am a gorge, a swell, I am living long enough
to tell you delicate words in the hours of early morning.

The romance is an egg crack —
just gentle enough to splinter the shell,
not so hard you pierce the yolk within.

I love you with the tender of the night, the lutescent dawn.
I am in the graveyard exorcising all the deaths that lived within
me,
and laying them down in the peaceful dirt.

Filthy sweet, I don’t want it to make sense,
all I need it to be is this, yellow icing and batter,
dripping down my hands, something that doesn’t
hurt when I swallow.