Carry On
by Conyer Clayton
A limb becomes
increasingly heavy
once you lop it off.
A spleen stuffed
into a suitcase will overstretch
the seams. The zipper catches.
A piece is
missing, left
somewhere, kicked
around on tile. Quiet
danger of a foreign body.
Quiet danger
in your own.
Once punctured always punctured.
A tube rolls its eyes in your chest.
Your body is an origami.
What a shock
how easily we unfold
and no one taught us
the pattern. The paper
blooms in my hands, bloody
and wetting and wetting and
ripped. What if, and
another expanding tear.
But how, and
a jagged laceration.
Valleys of Cape Breton
by Conyer Clayton
You lied —
not sleeping,
slow movement
under a patterned quilt.
A dense divide in the air. I went
to the bathroom. You knocked. Concern
in your voice.
I started to talk and you balked, retreated
to bed. It doesn’t matter
who’s right,
I said. It does, you said.
The human condition, you said
as the mattress held you.
I’d hold you too but
my hips ache, and my arm
sleeps under your weight.
Over from the Start
by Conyer Clayton
Crickets bellow that time turns
over, and you
bat rocks with sticks
on a windless day. You’ll be sore
from twisting, filthy from finding
a pattern, serpents
etched on fossils, a fist
into drywall, a swing
and a sparkle,
missed
three times and you’re done.
each stroke each breth nu beginning
by bill bissett
n we made our wayze 2 th part uv th rivr it was eezilee
wher onlee byzanteen swans n morocan ducks wud swim
n we fell thru th bottom uv th rivr like falling thru a
sink hole on yonge st in toronto canada a major
place on erth n cumming thru backwards 4 a
long whil n up on2 a wundrful medow all
glowing green n a littul town calld we
watch ovr each othr alwayze
they wer not konfliktid
erthlings maybe ths was
reelee lunaria take a deep breth we did n
its reelee reel yes remembr that pome
i wrote abt th rivr heer it is in th palm
uv my hand dont cry i sd 2 him
listn