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Vol. 3, No. 3 Contents

Story  by PTIM CALLAN

This is an outsourced text. The authorial voice known (or, for the most part, unknown) as Ptim Callan has outsourced the creation of this short story to a multinational contracting agency whose name could not appropriately—tastefully—be given here.

The Japanese Colleague  by ALEX SHISHIN

2 September 2003
fiction, short story

"It's an Affirmative Action thing," said Jay Hamilton, Minoru Taniguchi's old friend and new colleague, who was African-American. "Not that any of the faculty will say it to our face."

Topsy-Turvy  by CHRISTOPHER BARNES

2 September 2003
poetry

In widow's weeds, the bull, the sun,

the flower, the light bulb—it clings

to room 7 of Centro de Arte Reina Sofía,

Guernica, the fizzled-out horse, the woman.

Morning Lesson  by MICHAEL BROEK

2 September 2003
poetry

Schoolchildren begin their graying

day on the barnacled yellow bus,


warning lights flashing, hands…

Between Snow and Memory  by RICHARD ALAN BUNCH

2 September 2003
poetry

From the scales of illusion, this love survives.

The rains come, the grass grows.

Snows bury, memory stokes

The smoke of myth, the bird of tongues.

Looking at the Sun  by KEVIN CONDER

2 September 2003
poetry

We each bought a sweet roll for a dollar

at Ed's. Cecil unrolled his tape measure

and the damn things were exactly a foot square.

Old Dog, New Trick  by JACK CONWAY

2 September 2003
poetry, prose poem, light verse

Man walks into a bar with his dog and says to the bartender, "You wanna buy this dog? He recites poetry."

The Birdkeepers  by STACEY DUFF

2 September 2003
poetry

When Lisa falls to Anneke falling in Lisa

songs assimilate an auburn cup:

martins are privy to glass, to burn

further in the quivering arrow.

Night Songs  by ANNALYNN HAMMOND

2 September 2003
poetry

Some nights, birds take form

from nests of twisted barbwire,

or if not birds, something similar—

a coyote or your mother's hand.

Six Billion and the River  by ANNALYNN HAMMOND

2 September 2003
poetry

I was once told the infant's eye

is able to drink water

from a curved leaf in China,

and when they sleep…

Euclidean Senses  by JEFF KERSH

2 September 2003
poetry

We were a plane angle of a sort, inclined

to one another in a plane not lying in a straight line.

Her husband might know, or worse, she herself

might find out, seeing as the whole affair…

Tar Pit, Freight Train  by JEFF KERSH

2 September 2003
poetry

Feet sinking in the Wal-Mart parking lot, walls thick and soft

as mattresses crawling up. Windproof, soundproof, dizzy

from the world buzzing around, hummingbirds hovering

to see how much sweetness they can get before the cup…

The Wind Blows Coldly and He Turns Up His Collar  by RUSTIN LARSON

2 September 2003
poetry

The ice refreezes

before the feet walk home.

Reading the Part  by DENNIS MAHAGIN

2 September 2003
poetry

I wonder will you

worry much


when your cherry popping daddies stop…

Astigmatism  by LAURA MCCULLOUGH

2 September 2003
poetry

Tell me, please, how to sail

down the corridors of my hair,

shield my glabrous eyes, apprehend

the white flash off the ripe arc…

5 a.m.  by TERESA WHITE

2 September 2003
poetry

There's much to do in a sleeping house

though this means silence, little light,

talking to myself.

Even the cats don't wake…

St. Helena  by TERESA WHITE

2 September 2003
poetry

The sun hit the water;

a crowd followed its moving light:

how they hated you, how they loved you.

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