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Vol. 4, No. 2 Contents

One-Upmanship  by THOMAS GADA

2 June 2004
fiction, short story

My wife's sister called a few days ago to set up a get-together for this weekend. They only live an hour away, so I don't mind.

Blitzkrieg  by DIANE GOETTEL

2 June 2004
fiction, flash fiction

In second grade I learned about abuse and the German language.

I Love Happy Hour  by S. P. HOLLAND

2 June 2004
fiction, flash fiction

Somewhere in New Mexico. The bar is almost empty and the sun cuts a pattern like a paw print across what was once a beautiful countertop, giving it length, making a confessional out of the tiny crevices of its beveled edges. The bartender is a man who used to be handsome—now he has to work for his living. He begins with a conversation.

In Search Of  by SARAH LAYDEN

His cubicle wall shuddered for the third time in the last hour, and he automatically began fishing fallen thumbtacks and papers from the crevice where the wall met his desk. He'd tried talking to her. He'd tried making a joke of it. But no matter what he said, Patricia Trumble's enthusiasm, speed, and girth propelled her rolling desk chair into their shared wall space repeatedly each day.

Man Down Below  by KATE MILLIKEN

You are minding your own business.

"Do you want to know what I think?" Eddie asks and you think, no dear god—not him again.

Okla Elliott Speaks with Fred Chappell  by OKLA ELLIOTT

2 June 2004
nonfiction, interview

It is hard to sum up the career of Fred Chappell. The Los Angeles Times wrote of Fred, "Not since James Agee and Robert Penn Warren has a southern writer displayed such masterful versatility," and I guess that'll have to do.

The Poem: Balm for Twenty-First-Century Wounds  by HUGH OGDEN

2 June 2004
nonfiction, essay

The outside is the inside in poetry and the poem.

"And He Took Her for a Whore": On Prostitution, Sudden Death, and Coitus Noninterruptus  by MARTIN SCOTT

2 June 2004
nonfiction, essay

The first time I saw prostitutes walking their track I was in my early twenties.

from The Constraints of Architecture  by ADAM CLAY

2 June 2004
poetry

Can't see the field for the easel. Sometimes the easel

Is a mirror and you're fixing your hair. Sometimes this eddy

Of air carries the canvas into the woods, the tongue of a bear

In your pocket. Chasing it, you stop and think…

from The Constraints of Architecture  by ADAM CLAY

2 June 2004
poetry

A longing lives inside the mind: both to be in the past

Where we weren't, but also to be the person

We are in the present living in that unrealized past. The moon

Is a paint bucket on its side. The moon is…

La Famille  by JOSHUA COREY

2 June 2004
poetry

water & earth give birth

to these successors'

wisp of dirt, dusk

A Solar Flare Is Expected  by MARY-CATHERINE FERGUSON

2 June 2004
poetry, editors' select

Not the northern lights or the atom's first splitting.

Not the backyard, the tree, or the fence.

Ladybugs landed all day in everyone's hair,

An invasion.

Votive #59  by KAREN KOHOUTEK

2 June 2004
poetry

The moon fades in and out but has no weakness.

For years I watched two free falls of light trickle down the courthouse wall.

Word Cycle #2: Meditations  by SANDY LONGHORN

2 June 2004
poetry, prose poem

There is a quick breath after the accidental cut and before the blood wells up, pain red as a poppy, the body a font unto itself. Thinking too hard on biology, anatomy, the course of history, I am amazed I stand here breathing. Where is the invisible, intricate clasp of my undoing?

What We Did Before  by ROBERT MCDONALD

2 June 2004
poetry

We bailed out the rowboat, trapped in the middle of a sinkhole

of longing: ripple of silver, the trout

beneath the water.

We were caught by the teacher…

East of Sunday  by THORPE MOECKEL

2 June 2004
poetry

Acorned & gnomic, trees, too, are mists.

Candles of.


Believing's almosts.

Prelude to a Hug  by THORPE MOECKEL

2 June 2004
poetry, prose poem

It was the expectant month. The rivers rose as fast as they fell. One morning the cherry trees were freckled with something like green blood. There were the usual hardships and joys, and often they felt quite unusual.

Why I'm Here  by DORENE O'BRIEN

2 June 2004
poetry, catalog

My parents remembered the Cuervo but forgot the condom.

I wasn't flattened by that bus when I was five.

I didn't go with Thom and Mick to the ravine that night.

Inheriting Stock in Eskimo Pie  by JOSHUA POTEAT

2 June 2004
poetry, elegy, editors' select

And why not an equation? The numbers

          keep him warm at night, beg him to read stories.


They believe in him when his wife will not,

          when the forecast calls for snow, unending snow…

from A Song to David  by CHRISTOPHER SMART

2 June 2004
poetry, classic, rhyme

Strong is the horse upon his speed…

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. from Jubilate Agno  by CHRISTOPHER SMART

2 June 2004
poetry, classic, catalog

For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

For he rolls upon prank to work it in.

For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.

For this he performs in ten degrees.

Heart Part Two  by ALLISON TITUS

2 June 2004
poetry

What is the shape of the artificial

heart? Accordion or tin toy wind-up bird,

artichoke or closed fist.

Historiography for the Body  by ALLISON TITUS

2 June 2004
poetry

What I keep of you I keep in my stomach


where it is easiest to feel empty,

easiest to feel full.

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