From issue #1
by Liz Hindle

CARTS OF LINEN

These women who`ve
Let men into their lives
No longer weep,
Peeling condoms
Lovers have thrown against
Walls, think nothing as they
Inhale the smoke of last
Evening`s marijuana cigarette,
Careful to check for burns
Before making the beds.


Four-seventy-five an hour
And free coffee.
The dog shit on the carpet isn`t as serious
As kitchenettes
Broken into,
Every pot left filthy
In the sink.


Some have been
Chambermaids
Thirty years: longer than
Any of their marriages.
They hold fast to carts
Of linen rolling down
The third floor corridor,
Looking for the staircase out.

From issue #5
Rachel Ishiguro

CREATION

"Imagine being the first to say surveillance..."
~Howard Nemerov


Imagine being the first to say surveillance. Imagine the feeling, your tongue giving birth to a new word. Feel it roll comfortably in your mouth, form it perfectly, then let it go. Your magic creator`s eyes can see it shining softly, learning that it has wings. It unfurls them cautiously, tests them twice, then leaves. Soon it is everywhere, your word on other people`s tongues. You try to reclaim it, but it doesn`t linger in your mouth any longer, just escapes as quickly as it can, laughing. "We know each other too well. You made me," it says, and flies away. There`s gratitude for you! Still, would you trade that one short moment of discovery for anything?


I mean, imagine being the first to say computer. Or gravity. Or even paper. Imagine how it would be to have that word to yourself for one small second and mould it. Imagine what you`d do with it. Would you whisper it softly so that no one else would hear? Would you say it with awe, or with disgust? Would you shout it? Sing it? Would you write it down in purple jiffy marker on yellow construction paper, or in leaky ball-point on the back of your hydro bill?


I know if I had been the first to say surveillance, I`d be proud. I`d hang it up in neon lights. I`d bake cookies in the shape of letters and serve it up to all the kids around the block. I`d say it, sing it, type it, love it, and then I`d let it go.

From issue #14
Leah Baade

IMPALA

The boy pumping gas
mutters, "Nice car,"
doesn`t think a girl
should drive anything
but a second-hand Volkswagen.


You drive it
for the dirty old men
who think girls don`t know enough,
for the cops
on the boulevard,
daring you to speed.


You pay the boy,
peel out of the station
leaving two strips of rubber
thick as snake skins
for your grandmother
who told you
show them what you got.

 

From issue #34
Davy Preston Knittle

Bay Ridge Avenue

I

Ours is the sort of work that goes undone.

Time before morning is New York Bay fog, tug boat horns,

September, a fall leaf novelty si reaching to colder light
but we are still six ripe days to a peach picked midmonth, upstate,

engaged in the process of assembling a collection, selections from clock
faces opening pocket knives by means of street lamps, somewhat unripe
pears
eaten in Owls Head Park

II

November, in whole and half steps
a minor up,

you and I in bathrobes amking fruit salad,
adding the last October apples, and

this little monster, a kiwi we can't eat until we talk about distance.

III

You have declared a Sunday morning moratorium on sedition, on air-
ways, on 880,
and an opening
to a Peter and the Wolf play a flute line to violins
to fortitude and long, slow humming on the subway digestion of vowel
sounds,

to Patrick Stewart and his whole grain voice,

You a commander of kitchen utensils gone on morning light.
appliance doors having been opened, timorous charge like wires and
bulbs to batteries, identifying sleepers lacking agency, other illumi-
nated rooms,
apartments across and down.
us sitting with teacups, predawn, listening to bassoons over the first
expressway traffic and trucks backing up the 67th street hill.

 

From issue #36
Lyn Li Che

Hunger

these hands, as if to conduct an aria,
clasp a pair of chopsticks,
direct instead a symphony of quivering noodles and fat dumplings
into my mouth

how I long for the clamorous conversation
that drifted over plates of steaming siew yoke and pickled acar
I never touched,
for the glistening fat that dripped from Aunty Man Khim’s mouth
like liquid gold,
for my grandfather’s drunken outbursts
between each alternating bite of steamed chicken rice,
for the laughter and the love that dissipated
in wafts of steam
over our traditional Sunday meal

how I long to satiate my hunger

but, alas, the wok is cold
and there is only sweet and sour chicken,
tasteless fried tofu and a Panda Express fortune cookie
that tells me my lucky numbers:
1, 12 and 54.