Zero Readers

Author: maoglone

Misplaced Karenina

Aniket Sanyal I am perhaps in aweof your feathered-cap majesty,you hypocrite princess,our transplanted Kareninaof a Kremlin motorway.What good or what rot,in being a century short or tall,when I cannot put thumb and fingeron your oily roots …I see such strange woundsin your sideways gaze.You are inverted, translucentbefore my searching eyes.Around us, in evening’s light, gleamfar […]

The letters between us

Cat Dixon 1.Did you hear the horse thunder and taste the dustin your cabin? The wild hooves kicked up a stormlast night. The hours passed as I reread your letter,licked the envelope flap you sealed, traced your name, and wondered if you were reading my poems.Nothing fills this pit except your words—cursive and hurried across the […]

HOW TO MAKE MARTYRS

Cole Henry Forster I’m listening to Gerry Raffertyand I’m thinking to myself,who the fuck is Gerry Rafferty,and what the fuck is “Right Down the Line?”‘Cause I can’t tell who’s sore,and there’s no rippin’ off the bandaidwith the first big scene,you gotta drag it out and feel that onefor a year or two, and thentake the […]

APOLLYON

GIA KELLIHER 0b1.  hey, I know you! you lolling Jell-o eyes, your eyelids are heavy  you spit a billion more phrases, you’re summoning mandelbrot, your shed is a rube machine, it whirrs and molts, you don’t sleep through the night, your sermons are petsmart, full of ferret bones  your nightly dream, a boor girl, her tunnels feel like astroturf, she peeks at you through Bavarian mist, she […]

TRANSUBSTANTIATION or THE BREAD BABY

C.E. Brady Yeah, put the leftovers in one of the jars on the second shelf;no, I know there’s a lid that fits, I promiseI’m working on a new organization system for the pile up there,what a mess! I need to learn how to let goof every exponential almond butter jar I am compelled to keeplike, […]

hrt4t

Keagan Wheat Logan unpacks needles, swabs, syringe, bandaidI settle my knee against his thighAs we sit on his Star Wars comforter.He plays Elton John, tiny speakerscompleting ritual. _______ Alone, I track 26 minute walkwith sagging backpackHawthorne, Montrose,Westheimer. Findingacorns to slow footfall, brief floatturns to stomp.With cars’ isolatingwind and shifting curb along,I reach my new pharmacy. […]

I do not know your names

Stan Galloway Your names toll in my dreams. “26,” – Rachel Eliza Griffiths I do not know your names                           your faces.The photograph shows you beside the war monumentreminding me that time has circled back upon itself                          how tanks have driven                                        out of our grandfathers’ memories.I do not know your names.The newspaper tells more than I can see         of your clothing                snug […]

Pre-Dawn

D.W. White Tomorrow knocks againSo patientlyCarrying the pain of her childrenAnd asking us to let her inFor she is a solitary travelerWith only one door to try D.W. White is a graduate of the M.F.A. Creative Writing program at Otis College in Los Angeles and Stony Brook University’s BookEnds Fellowship. Currently seeking representation for his […]

Twenty-First Century Red Riding Hood

Rachel Alarcio The world is my mother and Mother is a witch,she says, a psychological horror protagonistwalled in, exit forbidden sans consent.Lest the teen princess be exiled. The hearth is ravenous, cavernous,cold as the word no.The screen is her ladder,her savior. Purveyor of Prose. Playground Pariah.These epithets? Remnants of rejection.The prince in print is amber […]

The Stress of Poverty Lowers the Capacity to Learn

Brandon North I’m climbing out of this secret.At the benefactress soiree,I tuck a ladder inside my ear to remind myselfno personality lives beyond the person.Often they die long before the bodies.I don’t explicate myself as a mere bodythe way publicly funded aphorists do.Class ciphers are always in the alibis:I cast a ballot for the hangman,my […]