Allison Thorpe
A queen reduced to this:
debating the shape of an eyebrow,
weighing the merits of lilac lips
or persimmon frosted nails,
lingering the air with scented lures.
I know something about adornments,
what a strong-willed ambitious woman
needs to survive in the arena of men.
There are others more beautiful,
more wily in the ways of selling,
but the customers come to me.
I nude their mouths for boardrooms,
scarlet the lips for hungry nights,
line the eyes in smudge and smoke,
coat the lids with shadow green envy
like some graceful knowing cat
whose preening tongue
creams the shapely limbs.
A painted woman before my time.
Who knows what I could have achieved
in this world, this age that expects,
even demands, perfection.
I could warn them about the dangers,
the tightrope that drive and desire walk,
but a girl needs coin on the dresser.
So I peddle the wares of passion,
heighten the cultured gaze,
whet this desire for the power,
the feasting of wild dogs.
ALLISON THORPE is a writer from Lexington, KY. Recent work can be found or is forthcoming in Two Hawks Quarterly, Misfit Magazine, So To Speak, Crab Fat, Literary Juice, Yellow Chair Review, Poetry Pacific, and Gingerbread House.
Deanne Richards
The glacial glow of mediocrity was the venom, full of fire that dulled his dream. A guitar of ice with chords of frozen popsicles stood in the corner. The reflection of his past was like a dog sniffing foot prints. His belly was a paunch, pie shaped, a chunk of cement.
The other one was a toxin produced by an organism of praise. He lapped it up to excess and spat it back to the audience. There was a collective rousing with cell phones waving in a crowd of disappointment. The cliff was now too high, and he longed for hungry guts.
He was flatlined in an aura of mail. His heart was full of zip codes. His apron was torn from parcels of forgiveness. The truck was full and on time, but he still longed for the celestial notes that raised him out of the bins of licked envelopes.
The other one became the collective whisper that roused the others out of their sleeplessness. The tinge of pungent chemicals siphoned through the air and swayed to the beat of the chosen one. He didn’t play the hand of an ordinariness so deadly. His vitals were yummy and his aura electric with a silhouette that roared.
He ate his dullness for breakfast and choked on regret the size of a pineapple. His dreams hovered above him like a balloon that he couldn’t reach. Prairie dogs visited him with hugs and kisses in a condo made of dirt. He drank coffee full of rusty nails and kicked tubs of stones that had no postage.
The other one had one-night stands and sons who jumped from a penumbra. He didn’t know where he was. His home was a myriad of hotels trashed by an attack of earthliness. His soul was a closet full of empty hangers. There was no one close by, just the echo chamber of the crowds cheering for more of the malignant puff of phantasm.
DEANNE RICHARDS is a digital artist and writer who resides in Santa Fe, NM.
Christopher Morgan
The villagers took hammers
to the black mountain.
Broke the granite
until it was barely alive.
Made an example
of its rocky skin, carried
home in suitcases.
Just after the air came alive
with hunger. Birds fell
in clumps, softly pattering
the ground. Deer shrieked,
terrified whistles. Vegetables
and fenced fruit rotted. Wells
soured. Cattle dropped
where they stood. Eyes sprouted
where clouds had been.
It was a bad night
for sunsets — that night
it almost didn’t happen.
The sky locked its gaze
upon the villagers
during the whole procession.
Atop the earth’s ridged spines,
the town began to rumble.
The suitcases poured forth stones.
And each stone sought out a man.
CHRISTOPHER MORGAN is the author of “Shadow Songs” (Sad Spell Press 2015) and the Co-Manager of Nostrovia! Press. He grew up in Detroit and the Bible Belt of Georgia, before settling in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he received his M.A. in Creative Writing and American Lit. The Reviews Coordinator for Alien Mouth, he also edits for tNY Press and Arroyo Literary Review. He loves fables, hiking in the redwoods, and happy hour margaritas.
