Every time I lift the lid on the bin by the stairs to the units above, and upend my basket of recyclables, I hear the voice of my ex-husband’s lover. At a dinner party, months before I learned her real role in our lives, I turned to her amid the laughter and the clinking, and […]
Commandment On a West Texas highway between Plainview and Lubbock white text on a black billboard proclaims CONTROL YOUR MIND, OR THE DEVIL WILL! urging passing drivers and passengers to exert self-control, search souls flee from temptation banish impure thoughts refrain from coveting thy neighbor’s truck think righteous thoughts in the service of fear Exploring […]
There’s a circle of PETA protesters picketing my castle because I’ve been squirrelnapping woodland creatures to teach them how to vacuum. Somewhere something is happening, if only I could teach this pumpkin to drive a stick. If I sleep for a hundred years, will you kiss me awake? It’s just a short climb up my […]
is not what you meant to say when you locked the door behind you; you meant to say wait— look how the irises reveal themselves in the retreating light, their petals glowing in the morning’s full flower moon. Matthew W. Schmeer’s work has appeared in Cream City Review, Natural Bridge, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and […]
He was an odd choice for mentor, afflicted with a sort of stoic sadness. Years in that stone hut, surrounded by worldly tomes, provided a backdrop of daunting reminders: earlier days of great academic promise never fully achieved. Instead, real life intervened. He had been married twice, deserted by one, losing the other to illness, […]
I thrust my hands into the moving web to spin out each sonic filament. Each must breathe in its own rhythm, be heard by its familiar motifs. Each must rise out of the tangle, sing briefly, fall away to whispers. My fingers feel out strands braided, stretched, fragmented. I know them like the hollows of […]
One of the signs of relying on one’s own deeds is the loss of hope when a downfall occurs. — Al The Hikam of Ibn Ibn ‘Ata’illah How to be honest about this? – The mind with its revisionist self, all intention & ego. You want to say something about your heart, the soul, faith […]
Nude Male with Echo #136 Each touch, a blast of intention lost in the weather of the moment & I, forged in the decision to be the touch(er) have already ridden the whole river, but you, the touched have just joined me, here, with our feet upon all this water. Nude Male with Echo #137 […]
This is what you yearned for All those years as you stacked And piled and waited and waited Patience you knew could save you You treated it like a commodity Welcome to the city of dust Flat skylines and metal blinds When you stopped to refresh They kept coming Gnashing jaws and flashes of ivory […]
Travis awoke at first light and paced from one side of the trailer to the other. As the sky turned from blue-gray to eggshell, the daylight illuminated the labels on his boxes of supplies. Jars of pickled vegetables, canisters of dried milk, and sealed packages of meat jerky he had hunted and preserved himself. He […]
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