Mark J. Mitchell

After her failure as unicorn bait
she folded compass roses for lost maps.
Flat captains dropped them through their sailor’s caps.
They sank and opened like abandoned freight.
Next came a quick attempt to rescue moons
from night’s backdrop — she only slept through that.
She tried to polish used apostle spoons
until they cracked her tiny hands. White cats
began to circle her, counter-clockwise.
She couldn’t count them all, but her pale fears
were blooming. Cool palms slapped against her thighs.
Her lips moved. Words slipped past criminal ears.
They tickled. She sat still, too tired to try.
Eons became days, hours became years.

MARK J. MITCHELL studied writing at UC Santa Cruz. His work has appeared in many periodicals as well as the anthologies Good Poems, American Places, Hunger Enough, and Line Drives. His chapbook, Three Visitors, is available from Negative Capability Press; his novel, Knight Prisoner, was just published by Vagabondage Press. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the documentarian Joan Juster.

Sally Houtman

Little fish hook
dangling

waiting for
a truth.

SALLY HOUTMAN is an ex-pat American who relocated to New Zealand in 2005. She is the author of a non-fiction book, branching into fiction and poetry in 2007. Since that time, her work has appeared in more than thirty print and online publications, earned four New Zealand writing awards, and been nominated for a 2012 Pushcart Prize.

Anton Rose

With sleep, slippery, evading my grasp,
I ease myself out from under the covers,
stumble toiletwards, and piss.
The dog is wide-eyed too, and when
she runs to the back door, tail awag,
I open it obediently.

Grass underfoot, the black air is brisk,
scant guard provided by evening attire
of pants and slippers. The dog, donned
in her fur coat, takes the chance
to piss too, and together we smell the air:
trodden cut grass, barbeque embers,
and a strange sharpness from the wheelie bin.

The lawnmower sits pathetically,
an embarrassed relic of a job unfinished.
Rake in hand, I sweep at the grass,
now clogged with thin water, and glance
to either side to check lights and curtains,
in case the neighbours, too, are awake at this time,
watching my half-naked display, stage-lit
by moonlight.

ANTON ROSE lives in Durham, U.K. He writes stories and poems while trying to finish a PhD in Theology. His work has appeared in a number of print and online journals, including Structo, The Alarmist, and The English Chicago Review.