Illustration by Morgan Maurer, 2011

Now scribbled letters from the ghosts I know the best—men built from bones of contention, women from hair matted against the drain, the horny linguist who eyes the tongue, sad starlet muttering stage directions, spectral ex-girlfriends wielding their housecats, hirsute ghosts of coaches past declaring you run until I’m tired. I don’t reply, can’t raise their spirits with this silly alphabet, A standing splay-legged, B in her padded bra. Instead, gnawed pen, gooseflesh and a mad dash to the photo booth, urge to verify my face, gray litany of grins and grimaces. Meanwhile, riddles—what is the sound of one hand pinned behind your back?

Yes, I’m scared the dead will make their problem mine, come pop my heart, that party favor fashioned from a length of red balloon. At night I pray for growth but not growths, that’s swell not that’s swollen, trains every hour on the hour, no lightning but fireworks, lit fuse and a lightening sky. Alone, I whisper encore, whisper anchor, flash familiar shadow puppets at the wall, same laughing dog again, again. Good luck, they say, with blood and breath and what the air scares out and what the earth beats from your body:  piss, bejeezus, stuffing, tar.

Dora Malech is the author of two collections of poems, Say So (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2011) and Shore Ordered Ocean (Waywiser Press, 2009). Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker, Poetry, The Yale Review, Poetry London, American Letters & Commentary, and Best New Poets. She has been the recipient of a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, a Glenn Schaeffer Poetry Award, and a Writer’s Fellowship from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation. She has taught writing at the University of Iowa, Augustana College in Illinois, Victoria University in New Zealand, and Saint Mary’s College of California. She lives in Iowa City. “Cold Weather” was first published in Chelsea, and appears in the collection Say So (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2011).

Read a review of Say So here.

Illustration by Morgan Maurer, 2011

I tuck away my secrets
in my tepal until
it is time to trumpet
every petal and sepal,

calyx open, throat laughing.
I may be a common
daylily, but today
I will unfurl, wave

my stamen and declare
myself Hemerocallis—
it is mine, this day,
this beautiful day.

Sarah M. Wells is the author of the chapbook, Acquiesce, which won the 2008 Starting Gate Award from Finishing Line Press (March 2009).  Poems by Wells have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry East, Measure, JAMA, Literary Mama, Ascent, Nimrod, Christianity & Literature, Poetry for the Masses, Rock & Sling, The Fourth River, The New Formalist and elsewhere.  She has received scholarships to attend the Key West Literary Seminar and the West Chester Poetry Conference.  Wells is the Administrative Director of the low-residency MFA Program at Ashland University, where she also serves as Managing Editor for both the Ashland Poetry Press and River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative.  She lives in Ashland, Ohio with her husband, Brandon, and their three young children, Lydia, Elvis, and the “bun in the oven,” Henry. Visit her blog for more information: http://driftwoodtumble.blogspot.com.

Read more about Sarah’s work here.

Illustration by Morgan Maurer, 2011

It was after hearing your solo
in “Strange Brew” when everybody
started calling you God, and who
could argue? Later, the 80s brought
curlicue lines of killer powder
to an already full plate, conjuring
filigrees for a deadly wrought iron gate
like in the movie Omen II
before it impales
the priest… Styptic pencils, prying
open bloodshot eyes, vodka flasks
in toiletry kit, gig bag, soft leather
case, carrying it, carrying it.

After hiring Nathan East to play bass,
you cleaned up, and bought a plantation
in the West Indies for placing addicts
in anesthetic freeze to stem withdrawal
symptoms in lieu of deities and detritus,
until icicles formed at the anus cracks
of these addicts, long-cock stalactites
the color of faded amethyst. I remember
a December dawn, wracked by chills,
cramps and terror (the usual
withdrawal) — writing you a letter,
the gist of it not even much sincere,
asking if I might come to this new
clinic; God, I sent you

that pathetic note via post office
address in Antigua which I copied
from an article on your career appearing
in Creem Magazine. Sometimes I wonder
what became of that letter: Was it stuffed
in some duffel, packed off to a landfill,
or museum specializing in Pathos and
Cultural Oddities? It’s like something
out of Melville; or what Nietzsche
said about “the things that don’t
kill you.” Well, I lived through

the 90s, and into a new
millenium, and yet I’m not stronger…
Mr. Friedrich told a white lie when he laid
that one down, a platitude for deep thinker’s
decorum in a form letter, sent out to assuage
shame, guilt and doubt that might gnaw
through a man’s guts, or even
drive him nuts.

Still, if you could bottle
the kind of luck, that’s been visited
on me? Might call it recovery, or else
one soporific side-stitch analgesic
sponge for Christ’s cross-top
agony, time lapse for when it can’t
get any worse, then it does: Overkill
and Aftermath. Antigua in every city.
E.C., I forgive you the final fifty three
bars of Layla; how indulgent, simply
goes on, and on, and on and on …
reminds me nobody’s God.
Time is all; my letter
lives.

Dennis Mahagin is a poet from eastern Washington state. His work has appeared in many literary venues, including Exquisite Corpse, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Absinthe Literary Review, 42opus, 3AM, Slow Trains, Clean Sheets, Juked, PANK, Thieves Jargon, Keyhole, and Night Train. Dennis is also an editor of fiction and poetry at the online zine called FRiGG. A collection of Dennis’ poetry, entitled “Grand Mal,” is forthcoming in ’11 from Rebel Satori Press.Visit DM on the Web: http://fourhourhardon.blogspot.com

Read our interview with Dennis here.

Illustration by Morgan Maurer, 2011

Christine & Millie McCoy, 1851-1912

tear open the breast                        and heart to tell
biological truth: no:                         the black, deformed
birth: yes: slavery                             of the interior

unlock the shackled                          spine to show
in sixty-one years monstrosity: yes:
she never left my side the fusion of vertebrae

the malformation                              of blood and bone
collision? no                                   our walk, a side-step
the backbone braided                        dance: a waltz

born 1851                                       as slaves: the body
twice betrayed: the sky                    held the sun: no, moon
“MOON AND SUN                              UNITED ON STAGE”

illusion? no: miracle:                           the sisters
merged, their voices                         layered like the nightingale’s
sheath of feathers,                            light hitting its wings

breaking up light –                            negress? no: they are
crimson blazing,                                their song quick and agile
as their hearts’ pumping:                      yes: one beat:

one pulse: one soul, two                   thoughts, from darkness,
a final note                                         dividing the air: the sudden outward
breath rushing to fill                            the other’s departure

Shara Lessley is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry. Her awards include an O’Connor Fellowship from Colgate University, the Gilman School’s Tickner Fellowship, the Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, and a “Discovery”/The Nation Prize. Shara’s writing has appeared in Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, Threepenny, Black Warrior Review, The Southern Review and Alaska Quarterly Review, among others. She was the recipient a 2009-2010 Artists’ Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council, and currently lives in Amman, Jordan. “Two-Headed Nightingale” first appeared in the journal Gulf Coast.

Read an interview with Shara here.

Illustration by Morgan Maurer, 2011

Day by day, the days dissolved into the simplest of cross-stitched requests.
The sky let herself go—a fistful of sleet, a leftover moon.

Looking down became a hobby which payed off the morning when I found
an unmarked house key and a poorly molded plastic soldier.

On the path by the train tracks, I taught myself to recognize the marks
made by a limp in snow, shuffle in snow, stagger through snow.

There were calls to field, long-distance. Also, catcalls from moving trucks.
Some days I drove by Every Bloomin’ Thing and was tempted to turn off

into the parking lot and march into the greenhouse, remove my scarf and gloves
and stand bare-chested, crying pothos, ficus until I grew moss or was dragged away.

Some days I reached for my turn signal but kept driving. Thus, the weeks looked
like this: Monday—small claims court, Tuesday—leaky vessel,

Wednesday—scratched laugh track, Thursday—ritual burial, Friday—
blank check, Saturday—strip mall, Sunday—closed concession stand.

Another refrain snagged in my mind like a hangnail on some sweater’s pilled knit—
lit from within lit from within it went as I watched other women emerge orange

into the winter night, the sky a contusion, the streets all slush and no action,
their backs to a borrowed summer, to the bright lights of Jamaica Me Tan.

Dora Malech is the author of two collections of poems, Say So (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2011) and Shore Ordered Ocean (Waywiser Press, 2009). Her poems have appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker, Poetry, The Yale Review, Poetry London, American Letters & Commentary, and Best New Poets. She has been the recipient of a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship, a Glenn Schaeffer Poetry Award, and a Writer’s Fellowship from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation. She has taught writing at the University of Iowa, Augustana College in Illinois, Victoria University in New Zealand, and Saint Mary’s College of California. She lives in Iowa City. “God Bless Our Mess” was first published in Chelsea, and appears in the collection Say So (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2011).

Read an interview with Dora here.