THE CLOUD
The cloud fell in love with the woman, and the woman fell in love with the cloud. The cloud sat on the woman’s head like a big white hairdo. The cloud was the biggest and whitest hairdo anyone had ever seen. Together, they shined bright, an afternoon of true magic. “Some clouds spent their moment casting shadows, but not my cloud,” said the woman years later, shivering now, uncontrollably now, in a snow drift, on the white plains.
PEACH WHO THINKS
There once was a girl named Peach who loved to think. She stayed in her room all day thinking about everything outside of the room — a skein of black geese, the way a telephone feels in the hand, life on the moon. Peach’s family would linger at the dinner table each night to talk, but she would always excuse herself early, to go off thinking. There are not enough minutes in a life, she thought, and then she thought about that too, about all the minutes she had left. Time surrounded her, mockingly, like a field in a field.
PLANTS
Plants are colder than you think. You need to warm them up. You can put them near the heat. Have you ever showered with your plant? Stand there with it in your arms, the light from the shower window pushing through the steam, in your hot wet bathroom in the middle of some afternoon. Wipe the steam with your finger. Look out at all the people living a life. Moving around between things, hardly touching anything. They go to the zoo. They make wishes.
from OARS
We are in a cave.
We know because of the drips.
How the light lights the dark up.
Now is a time to take a photo.
You are licking a cone.
You look good licking the cone.
You end in the middle.
The end is nigh.
What ends is wee.
*
Sorry about my overflowing trash.
I’m the leader of a new cult.
It’s just that we only eat packaged foods.
We go to the zoo.
We talk to the zebra.
We yell watch out for the blue cloud.
Watch out for the foamy waterfall.
Watch out for the flashing volcano.
I will write you a letter sometime.
Any letter.
*
My blue jeans are so big.
No one can wear them.
Some jerk is talking about it.
He says numinous and esoteric.
But what do those words mean.
They’re magic words.
They make you bigger.
Look at you what you’re becoming.
Right, the opposite of a planet.
*
One thing we do is stare at seas.
We see what washes up.
Just bars of soap.
We go home, wash up.
There is a joke deep inside the world.
There’s an unbendable silence.
Like how you look to a tarantula.
*
A kindness casts a shadow.
It takes a knee to die.
You might be sick with some sadness.
We’re all sick with some sadness.
We weep at the end of everything.
Endless applause even.
Clapping like a broken gate.
If your heart was a gate
I’d break it.
return to ISSUE ONE