CASUAL DAY FOR LOVERS #5/ DAVID TOMALOFF

there is a card
trick I have seen

where the mark
believes he can levitate

, &the radio
whispers only

what it wishes us to hear

COLD/ CRAIG SCOTT

walking
in
winter
rain
is not as
cold as
your
shoulder

WORK DAY/ CRAIG SCOTT

1.
Talking to you,
you laughing.

2.
The dogs
eating
carrots.

3.
No gas,
every red light,
voicemails.

4.
Explaining forever
in 140 characters.

5.
Freddie Mercury videos
on YouTube.

6.
Pretending
to care.

7.
Imagine
being elsewhere.

SEVEN SMILES/ BL PAWELEK

there are seven smiles that love me
born within stars and rocketships
but made flat and colored
with the highest sun

they keep my place my balance
see my underlined secrets but don’t tell
never tell never judge

i tie a white cloth through them
drag them to far off places of water and sand
and to the fires that no longer hurt us but help

JUMP THE MIDNIGHT/ BL PAWELEK

guardian angel
passing the man
past midnight and fascinate
we jump the path and way
jump the midnight
of bright and passive

my water drop
gravity to hospital bed
and the only time i said
i love you

grab the light string
past the million colors
and the winds of wings
sing through the clouds

WHEN WE’RE OLD IN A CAVE AND LIGHTING FIRES/
DIANA SALIER

you walked in the door   i sharpened all my pencils.  

i wrote this grocery list  with you in mind —

peanut butter eggs bacon mustard brown rice.

i’ve been training  to be your lover since the first grade.

i make the best trades. you will never go hungry. i can turn lunchables ham into pudding cups for weeks.

i would throw a dodgeball at anyone who stole your bicycle.

i changed our entries on ancestry.com  so now we are fraternal twins separated at birth.

you can stay the night in my tree house after giving your verbal consent – a simple YES will suffice.

there are so many songs  i wish i’d written 

and when we’re old in a cave and lighting fires in our slippers,

i’ll write them for the first time and play you a series

of new old songs

DADDY MAKE IT BETTER/ MISTI RAINWATER-LITES

He thinks I’m stupid. He thinks I smell bad. He gives me
a book on basic etiquette and a bottle of sex burst perfume.
His new wife is such a fetching bitch. She has excellent
improvisation skills and a killer ass. I’m sulking in the corner.
The world has treated me like a lesser fish but still I’m gasping
and gutted and frying in butter in some man’s skillet while
old black voices croon medicine on the new moon station.
Some man is going to eat me with hush puppies and tartar sauce.
Some man keeps killing me. I’m living thrash to thrash.
Each day is a deliberate ouch a manic seek a throaty plunge.
Mother is exasperated. When is her girl going to start making sense?
The sun. The pond. The rusted toys. This broiling expanse
so choked with weeds.

SURGICAL WRATH/ DAVID S. POINTER

WHERE WE GO TO GET LOST/ AMANDA DEO

We calm down
cathedrals it’s

time to grab
the brass rings I

miss waving goodbye.

I WAS A MOUNTAIN/ ZACH FISHEL

Still using the same water jug

Roaring down

Rusted springs

Cutting against

broomstick spades

There’s no kill

shelter on mountain road.

Removed one pull

apiece

This patience isn’t

only your own.