By John Brantingham

Jason and I spent that whole long summer day
hiking downhill
toward the Kern River

where they told us we could see a waterfall.
It was there, of course,
but we missed it, wrapped up as we were

in a conversation about the nature of love
and whether the cosmos demanded us
as humans to reproduce ourselves.

He said yes, and I said no.
but I wasn’t
quite sure I was right.

I took a slug from our flask,
and he did too.
Then I jammed my hands in my pockets

and stepped on a branch about as wide
and thick as my leg,
rimed in that year’s snowmelt.

I balance-beamed my way across the chasm to the bank,
not even considering the fall.
Neither did Jason.

When he reached the other side,
he told me that he thought maybe I was right,
that maybe we had a duty to anyone living

but not to create new life. I suppose it doesn’t matter.
Jason is dead today. I am not.
Back then life swirled around us like overspray,

and we were so strong and sure and far from Death
that he didn’t even bother to tap
us on the shoulders as we stood on his far shore.

By Travis Gouré

diagonal orders
of iris and dahlia
bending in the churchyard
where I remembered

how faintly I have dragged my feet through the blue hours, promising
to revive this terrific theater
if it’s the last thing I do

for I’ve wanted a part
in this lucky drama
for too long.

but what have I done?

protests in the style of prayer
and black vows

they were not enough to love you.

I’ve grown terrified
I may be captive
always to your most vacant territories,

for like the others can
I cannot riot for your heart.

By Amanda Tumminaro

The concrete of aloofness
has not always stuck my feet in safety.
Like the most indecent insect
I need room to maneuver without direction.
The first impressions in an elevator
don’t instruct my manner.
Psychology diehards sit back in sureness,
twirling golden, twinkling pens
and inform me I should shrug off my armor,
but has my neighbor invited me to tea?

The fault lies not in our stars
but in the vulnerability of the patient.
I clogged my ears with wax long ago.
Physicians do not own the title to reason —
I’ve managed to be moved
without flying out of an aircraft.
Society is decidedly wicked; I am not liable.
Let someone else fill their vacancies.
There’s a person, a shape, fitting for every gap.
I’d rather be tinkering with my own inventions.

By Olivia Vande Woude

An Easter egg dispenser stands
next to ceramic horses
singing faint, melancholy tunes
for anyone willing to pay
a dime to hear.

Woman buys
Dented cans of Vienna sausage
stickers of rainbows resting
on clouds
Pastel butter mints wrapped in paper
Errands before a round of cards.

Three men sit outside
near a sign that tells
“beer and batteries can’t be returned.”

Talk about women they thought they loved,
sips of alcohol from vineyards they only dreamed of
St. Michel’s name butchered
the neighbor who was allergic to basil,
gray tape used to patch holes of screens,
sunken leaves in stagnant pools of fall.

Drink coffee from 7 Eleven,
a cup for 99 cents
since it’s a dreary day,
and on dreary days everyone drinks coffee.

“I know men from all over,”
one, about sixty, proclaims
voice humid
and heavy with
an Islander accent.

“I even know a man from Trinidad.”

The others, with olive pits for eyes
whisper unanimously
“Really, Trinidad?”

Toussaint, a man of fifty-five
who works the ticket booth
on South Water Street,
prepares for his night shift
gathering his shirt
with his name embroidered in script,
contoured by a pallid orange.

“Just wait until you retire,” another man encourages him.

“Then every day feels like Sunday.”

By Leah Stenson

Instead of Asian architecture with antique charm,
I found box-like concrete structures
built hastily after the bombings.
Ponds with footbridges were still to be found
yet few Japanese had time to sit in a garden,
much less admire the moon.
Women rushed about in drab business attire
elbowing their way onto the trains like samurai
salary men in their blue pin-striped suits.
People flocked to department stores with more fervor
than they did to places of worship.

The city of my dreams, long gone before I arrived,
had quaint tile-roofed houses and gardens
with wooden footbridges crossing koi ponds
where Basho’s moon rippled on the water’s surface.
Women in floral kimono tightly bound
with yards of satin obi encircling their waists
teetered on wooden geta, their hips swaying gently
as they minced along cobblestones on the way
to Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples
where incense graced the air and people intent
on purifying themselves intoned the sutra.