Dreamboat
BY KATE BERNADETTE BENEDICT
Where the bilge bled,
what the hold held,
how the stabilizers spread their cunning wings—
as Ship's First Matrix
I was privy to all of it,
I had the Captain's ear.
That's why I was so pointedly wooed.
Red had done his homework, you see.
Red is not that bright
but he's shrewd; he comes prepared.
Guest of the wedding, I accorded him access.
I ushered him aboard,
issued him a card key,
escorted him to the galley and the bridge.
Or he escorted me.
I had the time of my life, watching him levitate.
Only I could see it;
the able seamen hadn't a clue
what cast that rosy light upon my cheek.
The ship went down that night
in the customary flames.
We watched from ...
Slipknots
BY MICHELLE LEE
Here and there I've left slipknots of selves
for dead, oaken and unmoving, yet somehow
they've unravelled, looping out from beneath
so many sweaters and mothballs,
those buried in brown boxes and stuffed
under stairs, ready to be sold or given
away. They tug at my neck,
a scar, a noose, a seizing in the bight.
When I stopped at a red light
she hopped out and stayed in Utah,
land of low sky and high earth
sharp with snow and pine.
If I squint, I can see the taut line of smoke
from her chimney beside the creek.
She fishes at sunset with twine, when she says
mouths are lazy and open.
Later I walked on the cape
and watched a rocket ...
Idaho Fell
BY JEN HIRT
When I moved to Idaho Falls in August 2005, I couldn't take my new home seriously. It was a 75-unit apartment complex with a name meant to evoke grandeur and respite: Shadow Canyon. Two-story buildings ringed a parking lot and a grassy area, and tall Ponderosa pines provided the aesthetics that vinyl siding couldn't. It was within walking distance to the mall, one of two Wal-Marts, and a buffet called Chuck-a-Rama. More importantly, it was within walking distance to a technical college. There, my partner in good times and ...
Bone China
BY NEALE JONES
Everyone neglected to tell me that I had a house where my heart ought to be. Maybe they were unaware. Perhaps, on the ultrasound screen, it appeared as a tiny womb within my chest, an open throbbing gash, a wound. It will heal shut, just as any injury, the doctor must have assured my parents. Though it may leave a scar.
Only later did it coalesce into a house. The edges hardening into roofline, window panes, joists, scabs of shingles, little bone studs for framing, a structure pushing back against the press of lungs and muscles, holding open ...
The Grand Inquisitor Comes to Tennessee
BY JIM BUTLER
Even while he was attacking his friend Walter Bob Feston, practically accusing him of being possessed by the Devil, Jackie Barron knew that he was out of control, sounding like a revival preacher he once heard, calling down hellfire and damnation. It was not like him.
Jackie went to church, of course. Going to church and loving Jesus was taken for granted in Cherokee, Tennessee; it was like eating supper, or loving your mother. Being a good person just naturally meant going to Sunday School in the church basement at nine o'clock on Sunday morning, then going upstairs for the sermon at ten o'clock, and—this ...
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- Bone China
- The Grand Inquisitor Comes to Tennessee
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