Layla

Lauren Clark

The apartment is long, so
if, upon waking, one turns one’s head on the pillow
away from the wall, it becomes possible to see
all the way through the hallway, the living
room, the kitchen, all the way to the stranger
at the counter, where he is placing
a small amount of…

from The Hindrances of a Householder

Jennifer Bartlett

You do not believe you are sexy. You do not believe you are beautiful. You believe you are intelligent, but sometimes the effort to convince others isn’t worth it. You have cerebral palsy from an accident at…

Dear November,

Joanna Fuhrman

I’d like to order another November
instead of you. There’s some rain
in my shoes and it’s flooding this
poem, turning all the gutters into
used-up guts. A fireman with an ancient
harpoon wanders the parallelograms
of Virgil’s internet looking to be…

King

Sandra Beasley

Among the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

This vexes the one-eyed man, who’d hoped to
play upright bass for a living. He loves
that four-string simplicity, steel or gut,
a job he can do with his one eye closed.

Self-Portrait as Shop Window

Patricia Spears Jones

After David Rivard

………… On the bus

Thus the passing parade — All Hallows’ Eve

That Outfit Is Smart Because It References Pamela Des Barres

Gina Abelkop

I walk

like a bent eye

On the road
at night

Los Angeles

Ben Fama

Like any subscription member
of the Metropolitan Opera
fashion bloggers believe
they’re at the center of perception.
I want to go where men go.
Is a high school crush
on an alien surf girl
the same as the need
to fatally possess
the other and the self?
My friends…

To Write a Poem

Barbara Jane Reyes

She is writing a poem — t​his is just to say

She is alive inside an icebox, so sweet

She is locked inside — four × two × two

Black Friday

Sandra Simonds

There really is a place in my register for you.

. . . . It’s too bad your heart has become

like a machine, counting shapes and sizes

Dear Other:

Megan Burns

in legal terms, in the cessation, curled lip. what i will not do is take out a photographic memory, cherish & obey as we were wont & won’t, so legalese speak we domicile, we temporary, we separate, a year in abeyance. other, that’s the unspoken conditional. what…