Short, Fast, and Deadly

Weather Therapy

A dream I had, a room of trophies and carpet flooding from below. Father bleeding on the tarmac, frightening the birds. Mother’s voice soft and sad. What can you see through the paper cow taped to the wall, through the holes from hoof to horn? I can see the salvaged ports, the lost dogs, the monsoon. Our currents, tides, pulling the hagfish closer to the peninsula. A bulletin board, decorated by your tiny fingers.

by Scott Riley Irvine of Atlanta

In a State

Through the doors that expose
both Dakotas she became
a vision of what she said
she'd never be. 
 
by Ali Coad of Alpharetta

Elegy

    Sparrow found
on the side of the road
        who could perjure my fingers--
 
        bone shaman,
    convict,
        hanging wisteria.
 
by Sara Henning of Athens

Dirty Business

After college, after summer, came the cubicle. She kept gladiola in a tall vase on her desk: yellow and apricot, colors that buzz. Someone saw her Ficus, advised: Pinch off the dead  leaves. Just the dead, every day. Soon the tree looked real bad. Outside, she wished against fabric walls.  
 
by Susan Rukeyser of Atlanta

It’s All a Wash

When I came home that night I was shocked to find my wife and kids missing. Then I remembered I didn’t have a wife and kids, but I did have booze. Two hours later, I didn’t give a damn. 
 
by S.G. Rogers of Savannah

Substance

He loves her better. Forever after out she moves. He chooses the smallest fork because she did. At work he’s got a girlfriend. She lives with him. May is two years. Off he sits with her father’s fifty-two inch. The first episode’s always a rerun. New endings heard but never listen. The grocery list: two red eyes, no blinker, the closest he’ll ever come to the night sky.

 
by Parker Tettleton of Woodstock

High Inside the Walls

Water is in my heart. They circle, candling my eyes below open blinds. There is a secret. It’s broken lips. There is no secret. It’s broken lips. I look up, see down. Hello, Darkness.

 
by Parker Tettleton of Woodstock

Severance

A co-worker came to me today in a panic.

"Someone murdered the boss!"

I ignored him at first and continued working.

"Didn’t you hear me?"

I leaned back in my chair, replaced my letter opener in my desk drawer but didn’t say anything.

"You’re no help," my co-worker mumbled and stomped off.

I smiled, and went back to work.

by A. W. Gifford of Lawrenceville

You’ll Hear Nothing (At Best)

At worst, you’ll hear: you’re father and mother, brother, sister, aunt and uncle, grandfather and grandmother, the dog, cat, fish, the sky, grass, hills, trees, the water over, under, upon everything, the sun, moon, all the way up and down, every shape of cloud, the button, pocket, shoe making each print, the ink, words when I lower my head, the stolen breath, where it went, what’s ever, that never spent.

by Parker Tettleton of Woodstock

Etc.

Of course. And. Between. After all. This. Remember. How. But. I never.
 
by Parker Tettleton of Woodstock

Blister

Fucks. She’d been a fuck the last fifteen minutes and he since he walked in on his father’s brother at the reunion where he drank whiskey in an outhouse and couldn’t sit straight for weeks after. She was a fuck and knew how to perform a favor. She was a fuck and knew it was important. His twenty-fifth. Then his red eyes cracked with the sun, her smell on his tongue and his worm wore the blister of a twelve-year run.

 
by Parker Tettleton of Woodstock

my first boyfriend was a girl

is a girl we were at target and i left you there the trader joe’s bag dancing around the big red balls on the sidewalk bananas trojans a gluten-free cookie mix mashed by the lady with three redheads in her cart my car would not start i sat i sat you called said meet me meet me halfway by the pharmacy in front of me there is a little girl with chiquita hair chocolate chip cheeks and lubricated fingers

by Parker Tettleton of Woodstock

Second

They were working forward, sharing glasses of whatever through holes in a wall. Their day was not Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It was another, which drank their sweat and tears and left them fucking on a strip of cardboard outlined by moon. In love with avenues. A piece of what tomorrow wasn’t.

 
by Parker Tettleton of Woodstock

A Kid Bicycling on TV

Some people need to die to feel excited. My neighbor, Rose, plants lawn gnomes. Her husband’s daughter’s girl is in the window. On the mantle. Pouring lemonade ice cubes down Pop’s throat. There’s a kid bicycling on TV. His eyes meet mine and Pop’s then Pop’s chest on the beagle, Minute Maid dripping down his smile.

 
by Parker Tettleton of Woodstock

Adventures in Solitude

The door closed on its own. Maps made of mud cracked and crumbled onto the carpet. A tiny silver toaster slid off the kitchen counter, suspended like a cliffhanger in search of the bottom instead of the top.

And remember he did the day the fourth grade teacher stood back to the class, licking his equation with vine-ripened tongue.

by Parker Tettleton of Woodstock

Moth

a moth in my closet
came across my prized
silk garment
 
paused
 
as if seeing its reflection
in the blue laced waters
of a creek for the first time

by Serena Tome of Roswell

Modernization

Hair, skin flakes, gnat wings:
our kitchen shoots lysosomes from
floor vents to digest home impurities.
Though we still squat to empty colons.

by Catherine Zickgraf of Martinez