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Vol. 2, No. 4 Contents

Choppers  by MICHAEL ARNZEN

2 December 2002
fiction, flash fiction, experimental

She's so angry with me, the scissors buttermelt from the friction when I cut her hair. She fruitchecks my cheek and hostage negotiates the soggy clippers out of my hand.

Humanimal  by DAVID BARRINGER

2 December 2002
fiction, flash fiction, experimental

Their legs are trees. He jaguars into the room. He stalks in pajamouflage. A tree root guts him with an upkick, flips him, stunned. He looks up like he's down in the lesson tub looking up at Father. A man's smile wavers in a whiskey glass.

Mulligan Stew Recipes  by JNANA HODSON

2 December 2002
fiction, flash fiction

Trains run late. They always run late. Do they even have a schedule?

A Last Reminder  by ROBERT GIBBONS

2 December 2002
poetry, prose poem

Last day of winter won't disappoint. Rain one degree from the gentleness of snow rides the added chill of March wind bruising skin blue, or red, dreary, dismal. Olson called it dour.

About American Poetry  by ROBERT GIBBONS

2 December 2002
poetry, prose poem

More interested in finding than knowing. The symposia throng, led by panels, almost political, mostly American, addressing the question, 'What is American about American poetry?'

Blueprints & Material  by ROBERT GIBBONS

2 December 2002
poetry, prose poem

Working on a foundation reminiscent of a screened-in porch I helped my family build when I was a kid, only much larger. Carting wheelbarrows of sand for the cement mixer & concrete blocks. Old friends showed up…

Gastronomy  by NICOLE HUBBARD

2 December 2002
poetry

I lay here in limber fish


(I am not a rice paper kite)

tormented by the wrappers…

Sparse Beauty  by CRALAN KELDER

2 December 2002
poetry, light verse

After a bath

my very clean ass

Visualize Being Towed  by CRALAN KELDER

2 December 2002
poetry, light verse

said the sign

in the parking lot


Or Frogs

Believer  by THOMAS KELLAR

2 December 2002
poetry

I tell her she's superstitious

she fires back:

"You're a poor excuse for a skeptic."

She believes in miracles…

Fault-Line  by HANNAH LEAH

2 December 2002
poetry

but I can't forget           there is your story

Review of Crucifixions  by MARLENE LINTZER

2 December 2002
poetry

like the heavy shoulders

of the sea, how the north

star would be named Melville,

would sit about the broad sky…

Forget-Me-Nots  by CYNTHIA MARIE

2 December 2002
poetry, love poem

Open on the desk Kafka

                                        is flying in his little bucket

     the drops of ink he spilled while becoming aloft

form the profile of a woman's swan neck…

Antibodies  by ALLAN PETERSON

2 December 2002
poetry

Sick maybe, and if so yes for home, but not homesick,

that place where vast pastures continue as horizons—

but scared, and hoping as in a game with friendly players

they let you take back a wrong move. That something…

The Future We Can Name  by ALLAN PETERSON

2 December 2002
poetry

Nothing is motionless, not the painted portrait

blinking while you're away

whose acids are discoloring buttons, whose frame

is oxidizing while moistening its eyes…

When the Story Opens  by ALLAN PETERSON

2 December 2002
poetry

The ocean unfolds itself. The tongue stays put,

unreadable and needless.

We come to watch, speechless to the lake

where dragonflies dip their abdomens like brushes…

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