Expectation Nightmares, Yash Seyedbagheri
“every night, / I’m in a car / and I’m cruising faster and faster / the steering wheel is impotent / like rubber”
The Geese Are Back (in Town), Iain Grinbergs
“They often wander along the artificial lake and ruffle their way through the small beech-colored field behind my rented apartment. I still wonder what they eat. I could look it up, but sometimes I’d rather not have an answer.”
Dump Bear, Isabelle Doyle
“The dump bear is so hungry. People see her plodding, / weirdly elegant, around the green dumpster. They see her / on two legs banging a tuna can like a battle drum”
Any Other Person, Craig Brownlie
“She discovered she had turned into the wrong people: a girl chatting with a hookah-smoking caterpillar; a pregnant gunfighter; a suburban soccer mom; a tomb raider; an unexpected guest.”
I Am Jacql, Jacquelyn Shah
“I am jacql / crepuscular, incredulous / Had I been god there would be / no dust lint lust loneliness / or seasons of treason”
Drum as noun, Michael J. Galko
“An ugly fish, / scraped metal scales, / blotched, / sucking at rocks”