There are medals The Committee On Handling Tough Things
gives out—best wistful look, best remembering of a difficult time,
best walk across a bridge when you were sure life was getting away
from you
Read it in THRUSH
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“A Place You Once Lived” by Jeff Whitney
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“Physical Forgetfulness” by Yessica Klein
Some locations are more suitable than others to place something
you’d like to forget. The freezer, for example: forgotten homemade
chicken soup, a bottle of cheap vodka. Old suitcases are also ideal:Read it in the other side of hope
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“love” by Francis Host
Everything you do is for the wrong reasons,
I think at them, and every day I vow
to do at least one Good thing,
while wearing a face like I’m tearing apart
a Rembrandt with my bare teeth.Read it in Bureau of Complaint
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“The Dolly on Our Shoulder” by Megan Waring
The Dolly of our dreams says hun, says y’all,
says softly you can do this. Dolly says buck
up, says man up, says grab life by the balls
but she is talking to us women.Read it in One
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“Galaxy” by Sera Gamble
Listen,
when you’re born
you’re a galaxy
shoved into
a half-empty bottle
of Mexican coke.Read it in The Hunger
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“Call Me Baby” by Tess Gallagher
like the sun leaning its shadow
against the cream-white throat
of the water moccasin, strike
your body-bridging voice against water
Read it in Ploughshares
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“re: Poet Laureate” by Mark Neely
a laureate should
have the gravityof a minor planet
a gaseous atmospherethat can easily liquify
a souland my mornings are rough
already I choke down coffeeRead it in The Account
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“Who Else is There to Defend Me Now?” by Fiona Larkin
Speak out for me, little mites,
when the reckoning comes.Read it in Bad Lilies
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“Recentish” by Spencer Thomas Campbell
We both had trouble, in our wedding vows, coming to the point. Our loved ones grew bored, threw pens at us, groaned when we kissed. Then we were pitched off to some squiggly beach, where the staff kept us half-asleep with drinks the texture of baby food, but ice-cold and walloping. The squat glasses sweated in our hands. And then we were back inside the apartment we already shared, tan and blinking.
Marriage has turned out to be a worsening of that return.
Our friends are impressed by how long we’ve managed to keep a straight face.
Years.
Read it in X-R-A-Y
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“Whiteout” by Maria Poulatha
When the snow covers the ground perfectly, it’s as if nothing has ever tread here. It was not a priest, a soccer coach, a distant uncle. It was my own husband who broke me. You’ve seen some trees in the forest, 50 meters tall that burst into the skies lush and green. But inside they are being eaten hollow by parasites until suddenly, the fragments undone, the sap drained, they yield to a pile of mulch.
Read it in Lost Balloon
A Quiet Root 