Paul Hostovsky

Yesterday I couldn’t remember the word colander,
a word I love and have always thought of
as one of those words that’s lovelier than the thing 
itself. I was holding the thing itself in my hands,
the steaming angel hair pasta draining in the sink, 
when I looked at the colander and thought to myself, 
“What is the name of this thing?” And maybe it was
age, and maybe it was the beginning of something 
more pernicious, but in the end we have to let go 
of everything. We have to let go of every single 
thing and its name. And because I have always loved 
the names of things more than the things themselves
I stood at the sink missing colander, loving it more
than the colander, more than the angel hair pasta 
that I chewed abstractedly over dinner, trying to locate 
colander in my mouth, where it used to live
until it disappeared, its three slippery syllables 
like three spaghetti noodles in a pot of spaghetti noodles. 
And today, when I finally remembered it—found it right
where I’d left it—I whispered it to myself over and over
like a lover whispering the name of a lost beloved
who returns, but is untrue, and will disappear again.

PAUL HOSTOVSKY makes his living in Boston as a sign language interpreter. His newest book of poems is PITCHING FOR THE APOSTATES (forthcoming, Kelsay Books). His poems have won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, the FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize, and have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. Website: paulhostovsky.com

Micah Cozzens

That’s my last trophy dripping on the wall, 
from when we last unmasked the Dread Undead—
the claws protruding through are such wet red,
but blood here is never real, not at all—
My friends and I solve mysteries for kicks,
and always outrun what zombies we find,
because death is evitable and kind,
and there are never problems I can’t fix. 
I see you eyeing the picture on the stand—
they’re my friends: Shaggy, whom I used to date;
Scooby, his dog who talks; Fred, a dumb blonde
both handsome and ambiguously chaste; 
his Daphne; and there’s me, of course, beyond—
my too-dark eyes, as if drawn in marker.
You wonder: why do they look just the same 
as they did back in 1969?
Because we solve mysteries like a game,
our chasing and unmasking all benign,
and there is charm in insularity
that cannot hurt while remaining contained—
without consequence, what’s morality?—
I will never change, grow old, or give life
and neither, for that matter, will my friends,
and we don’t mind, if our lives never end.
I never expected to be a wife. 
But sometimes as I buckle into place
in my seat of the Mystery Machine,
I wonder if my life has been a waste.
What deeper truth, after all, can I glean,
chasing after pranksters in werewolf masks?
What difference can I make without change?
While Daphne, in her beauty, sometimes asks
the observer to want adult exchange,
though this suggestion always goes unsaid,
I am mute femininity cooked dry—
but always possessing freckled pertness,
that glasses-clad and book-balancing brand
of innocence that suggests alertness,
a rationality that is unmanned
and unmanning, because people prefer
naivete in theory, not right now—
accompanied by spread legs, not the work
of answering the questions disallowed—
When will you let me grow up? Will Shaggy
ever venture to start a family?
I am so sick of being childish
and perky. Give me gravitas. Give me 
a child, or blood, or something vital. 
Shaggy is content to smoke unnamed leaves
forever, happily unburdened, free
to enjoy his life without committing,
preferring to search for someone missing
than change a diaper or talk of feelings.
I guess being a Dad is worse than murder.
I wait, hoping to make something brand new,
but the days, they grow longer. How is it
I’ve solved so many mysteries without 
stumbling across anything really true?
Yes, we should be getting back to the van. 
Forgive my rambling—you understand
how it is, when someone gets you talking.
Feel free to take the picture. I don’t need it
to know what they look like. In our world,
me and my friends are always smiling. 

MICAH COZZENS is a North Carolina native. She graduated with an MFA in Fiction from Brigham Young University and is currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing/Poetry at Ohio University. She loves the work of William Faulkner, Jill Allyn Rosser, and Derek Walcott.