POETRY
Zachary Crabtree

Admiration

Her hands prepare him a drop of Chamomile She never plays anymore her viola, Etta
Dark, slick, my sister the Opera star Tito

her tiny shoes have toes like charcoal
She never plays anymore her viola
her hands prepare for him a drop of Chamomile

steam whistles on the pot made him lull
Stood on the chair. Let her
Dark, slick, my sister the Opera star Tito

Has an intellect, children admire feel
Comfort beneath the soapy sheets, elbow
her hands prepare for him a drop of Chamomile

slices a yellow lemon rind peel
Sour by dry bowing over she lilts her
Dark, slick, my sister the Opera star Tito

(Hung up her memorabilia)
the color of Nescafe, Etta
her hands prepare for him a drop of Chamomile
Dark, slick, my sister the Opera star Tito

Tardy Slips

an appointment conforms not to us, but we to it
a psych book today's news a mouse's memoirs universally distributed
Anna's tennis rackets are pamphlets: a flick Zombie Land. "I
see your sweater's green. Mine is very," an I-phone text ICU
the secure clack of the flute corks greased click like the saber
military brass, a turtleneck faux jock with slick cigarette the
door allows the heat debilitate the dorms. “The high school
I went to had no jerks, nor athletics.” The Tennessee hiring
ten police to patrol they say, “I saw you standing there the
cement wall with a book in your hands, and a tangerine.”  


Jeffrey O'Dell

Bound

every time you ride the greyhound bus

you say to yourself,
”I am never riding the greyhound bus
    again.”
”Fuck the greyhound bus,” you say.

but then you find yourself
      in tattered feathers
       with a silent, stolen hunger

sitting on a curb
    in Bristol, Virginia
     or was it Bristol, Tennessee?

you’ve been borrowing rides for two days

and you’re still three hundred or
four hundred or five hundred miles
from Kentucky.

and why were you going to Kentucky?

something about warm flannel.
   and violet sunflowers growing
     in every blue jean pocket

anyway, you’re back on
   the greyhound bus,

feeling a lot like what rotting wood
   must feel like after the moon
     goes down.

and you’re on your way to Kentucky

  dreaming of closed gas stations
    through a closed window.
and though it’s raining

   and the rain hides the moon,

the night

   is flickering with every promise of
every breath the amber morning brings.

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