Fiction    Reading Room    Memoir    Interview

The Bandito in the Bistrot

Face like a shovel: dirt and all.
I try to get full on sugar packs.
Toe through a sock hole like a pumpkin seed.
At the last moment, a glass of water appears,
and the diver lands. This is a love letter
because I received it. A love letter
but only I can see it. Trees spun
to a storm grove’s sides like shirts
in a washer. A tip jar out. It tips, it jars,
it’s out. So, we had it out out in it.
Did we. Had these envelopes licked.
The rabbit scares each night at the same
spot on the lawn. I carry desire
like a kid with a sleeping bag
on a school bus. He will wake with Cheerios
thread in his hair. We don’t pull through,
in the usual sense. We are pulled through, and pull
something through, as worms
threading a shell’s maze. My father said
put canvas over the barbed wire and all
I have is this priceless Mona Lisa. Nurse logs,
rain worms, Billie Holiday tapes.
A canteen. Bales of star. I suck the cold air in
to soothe my gums. Assuming the Mona Lisa
is the most beautiful thing. I tunnel out.
As long as I never surface, I cannot be caught.
Look: from the ground up, I unfold like a paperclip.
In winter light like snap peas.
 
Poetry
Johanna Aitchison
Michele Amas
Angela Andrews
Sarah Barnett
David Beach
Ken Bolton
Jenny Bornholdt
Rachel Bush
Mary Cresswell
Stephanie De Montalk
Cliff Fell
Tom Fitzsimons
Brian Flaherty
David Geary
Bernadette Hall
Kerry Hines
Andrew Johnston
Therese Lloyd
Iggy McGovern
Mary Macpherson
Dora Malech
Vana Manasiadis
Emma Neale
Gregory O'Brien
Lucy Orbell
Zach Savich  
Charlotte Simmonds
Marty Smith
Elizabeth Smither
Abby Stewart
Robert Sullivan
Jo Thorpe
Cath Vidler
Louise Wallace
Ashleigh Young

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