As one year shambles off into the sunset like zombie rhinoceros and another dawns as bright as fragrant as citrus dish detergent, we offer up this double handful of literary delights: Heather Lee Rogers’ “Gonzo Feline Dream” (read it to your cat!); Emily Weber’s “And a Time to Die” (read it while listening to The Byrds!); Martha McCollough’s “Mary Worth” (read it to someone with white hair!); C. B. Auder’s “The Bowls, the Buttons, and the Baskets” (read it to an inanimate object that actually isn’t!); Josh Epperly’s “Mutually Agreed Upon” (read it in your favorite restaurant!); and Isha Ro’s “Georgie” (read it when you’re feeling lonely!). Also worth noting is the cover art, Darin Forrest’s “Dead Reclining” (show it to a philosophical robot!)
Tickle it online or Elmo the pdf.
Hope this year is a good one for you and the world.
Martha McCollough
At poolside we enjoy the array of pastel rectangles and ellipses representing “picnic.” I sense your trouble and draw close. Later, in my kitchen, over plates of beige squares, our tiny forks wave in unison. You ask, When everyone I love has betrayed me, how can I go on? Well, dear, I can tell you how. And so I do. And while I am all kind concern, do not misunderstand — this universe bends for me, as when that poor Aldo, my stalker, careened off a bluff to his cautionary death (not shown). He wouldn’t learn. I feel you can learn. So it’s disappointing to see you at the next little get-together waving a wine bottle, shouting Save yourselves, don’t believe the lies! Advice is my department, dear. We are so nearly perfect. The sky matches my eyes so well there is no need for weather.
MARTHA MCCOLLOUGH is a writer and video artist living in Chelsea, Massachusetts. She has an MFA in painting from Pratt Institute. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Baffler, Cream City Review, Crab Creek Review, and Salamander, among others. Her videopoems have appeared in Triquarterly, Datableed, and Atticus Review.
Heather Lee Rogers
The cat will only
eat ballerinas now
I brought home
just one tutu
and her blood lust
laid it down
like sunsets in soup cans
our supply hits
hot rod tail spins
so we roar off
through all deserts
breaking cardinal laws
speeding records
principles of physics
she smokes and tells me
we should only eat
what we can catch
sets her iPhone GPS
to the nearest grand ballet
I let her drive, kick back
and drink a rootbeer float
as time drifts off
in melted desert skies.
HEATHER LEE ROGERS tells stories as a writer and an actor in NYC. Recent poetry publications have included Harbinger Asylum (online and in print), Here Comes Everyone (online and in print in the U.K.), The Rat’s Ass Review (online), S/Tick (online and in print), Waterways (in print) and Adanna Literary Journal (in print). She has been a featured performer at the Art House open mic in Jersey City.
