Peter Sears was born in New York, grew up in the East, graduated from Yale and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. He won the 1999 Pergrine Smith Poetry Competition for his book of poems,The Brink. His first book-length collection, Tour,was published in 1987. He has published multiple chapbooks of poetry and two teaching books, Secret Writing and Gonna Bake Me a Rainbow Poem. His work has been published in many magazines and literary journals and widely anthologized. “Long After I Am Gone” appears in his most recent chapbook, Luge, and is published here with the author’s permission.

Some day my daughter will make a left turn,
long after I am gone, and think of me,
not because she sees something in particular;

no, and not because of an odd overlap like
a rowboat crossing the path of lake moonlight,
but because I just rise in her memory like toast;

yes, she and I in a laundromat, feeding tumbles
of quarters into the dryers’ silver mouths
to make all five dryers spin long enough

to get ornery blue jeans dry as crackers.
“Do you see yourself there in the laundromat?”
“Yes, dad, I’m running from dryer to dryer,

sticking in quarters kerplunk kerplunk,
but I guess I’ll go back to putting stickers
on my school notebook because this is taking

a lot longer, dad, than you said it would.”
This recalling what you said helps me now
against each day falling faster and faster away.

Isai Jaimes is an experimentalist poet, born in Trinidad and raised in Venezuela, England, and the USA. His passion for art comes from a hero complex that overwhelms his nature. He is currently working on an opera libretto based on the Echo and Narcissus myth as told by Ovid, and his first book of poetry, Apollo 21c, is in the waiting room for publishing.

In the room

He’s suspended flat against a top corner.

The walls line together in pyramid between his eyes.

Two inches below the nostrils:

His tongue sticks out

like a red balloon flapping for its life.

Above his head,

Ears pulled up most,

A big exclamation point

Stretches halfway across the ceiling

And seeing a flame let go off a candle:

‘How curious, does Living jump off its wick

And in smoke cheer pirouette so?’

Stefan Lombard is a magazine editor, photographer, and freelance writer. He
lives with his wife in Portland, Oregon, and together they have no pets. See more at www.slombard.com.

We’re walking, she and I. We’re just walking, on our way home from Freddy’s. We’re earth conscious and crap, so we bring our own bag–it’s canvas–and that’s what I’m carrying. It’s got the red meat and the canned goods in it. The milk and the bleach and her new extra-special strength anti-perspirant for the one really sweaty pit. She’s got the flat of toilet paper, a 24-pack. Light but bulky.

And we’re just walking, on our way home. “Eddy,” she says. She is half a step behind me, because she is always half a step behind me. It’s an issue. “Eddy, look.”

I turn as I walk and it’s almost painful how awkward she is as she tries to balance this giant pack of t.p. on her head. It’s bigger than a ten-gallon hat, this thing, and of course there’s the slick plastic
wrapping on her shiny hair. Also, she’s just not graceful, my girl. But she tries.

Arms up, right pit dark, hands trembling, final adjustments, head just so, 24-pack of toilet paper, just so. And then, fingertips mere millimeters from the package as it rocks and slides atop her head,
“Voila.”

Wow. The 24-pack of toilet paper falls from its place, and mercifully, the display is over. “Supermodel, you are not,” I say. We’re walking.

“I hate you,” she says.

“Are you serious?”

“Why you gotta be so mean?”

“Mean?” I say. “Mean to you?”

“Yeah mean to me. Why?”

“I’m not mean to you, baby.”

“Yes you are,” she says. “That was mean.”

“Are you a supermodel?” I ask her.

“No.”

“Well then, what’s the problem? You are in fact not a supermodel.”

“You think I’m ugly,” she says.

Good Christ. We’re walking, and I shift the bag full of red meat and heavy stuff from one hand to the other. “Is that what you heard me say?”

“No, but why’d you say it that way.”

“What way? You called my attention to something you couldn’t really do, and that’s the second thing that popped into my head, so I said it.”

“What’s the first thing?”

“Traditional Moroccan woman with a woven basket on her head, you are not.”

“Oh,” she says, and catches up.

Benjamin Tellie is a gifted young artist currently enrolled in Columbia Teacher’s College. You can see his art at BenjaminTellie.com and read his occasional musings at his blog.

Babe, I’m worried. I spent a long time last night
thinking about our future.
When are we moving? I want to take a break,
a vacation.
I’m troubled about our income.

We could cut down on some things. Stuff.
Savings, you know?
Maybe get a license for those meats,
get a job downtown,
even sell some small things.

An outside commitment for credit.
It would be like pouring tea
or turning an hourglass
upside down.
A more of a handle. A spreadsheet.

Something that will offer us forty-two hours a week,
a ten-week term.
No, a twenty-week term.
Take you down to twenty-one hours a week.
No no wait. Thirty-three
hours a week.

So what do you think Harry? What’s on your mind?

Honey, can you fix me a cup
of that coffee you made yesterday morning?
Now that was something delicious.

We invite writers to submit their original work at any time, be it prose, poetry, personal narrative or something else. Read through some of the current features, and if you feel your work is a fit, send a note.

Submission guidelines

• Please include your submission in the body of the email – attachments will not be accepted.
• Please send no more than one prose piece of 1500-words or less, or five poems.
• Please also include a short (40-words or less) bio about yourself with your submission.

Thanks – Dave