The Street Where I Lived ______________________(on one Facebook thread, I asked for a childhood address ______________________and a detail from that house. 24 hours later, I asked for an ______________________address where something bad had happened and one detail ______________________from that house) I think it was on Reservoir Street _____on 1234 Fremont Street I think it was on Elemetra _____on Huckleberry Road named for Desert Avenue named for Humble Avenue named for Swallow Lane _____for South Layton Boulevard _____for the oil company I think I lived on Park Avenue East then _____on Primm Road then _____on Lydale Place then it was was Smith Drive then where I lived__Denver Avenue ___________Buffalo Avenue then or—Princeton Road named for Paseo Primero named for Menahan Street _____for East River Road I lived on East Fairfax then _____on Northwest 60th Court then or maybe it was Brookview Drive then _____or Olympic Drive then _____or Independence Avenue where [...]
Chris Bullard
Faux King in the Parking Lot It was in the parking lot at the Samba Club between sets at the Huxley wedding and he was an Elvis impersonator. We’d eyed each other during “Love Me Tender” through his heavy lashes he nodded me over. Ah, to be taken without being adored. Though to be adored without being taken is also a wonder. Those silver studs on his white suit. The Brylcreem (I didn’t know they still made it) left oil stains, dammit, on my nice linen skirt. Techno boinked from a passing car and we pumped to it. He said his wife didn’t understand him. “I never sleep with happily married men,” I told him. Curling his lip, the faux king shot “Then you ought to sleep with your husband.” I should have slapped him. But his thighs were hot and the side of the car was cold. From Miss [...]
Datura suaveolens If there were flowers on the moon they’d look like this, droopy and luminous, butter-colored, fading down to white, I’m thinking, swinging my bare feet, sipping at some moon-hued wine from the lunar landscape of Sardegna, just as he asks me if I know they’re often called “moon- flowers.” I did not know that, but I’m not surprised that he does, nor that he’s read my poem-thoughts again. I do know, though, that this blowsy flower’s parts are hallucinogenic as all get out, something that Rappaccini would have been proud to bring into existence were he in that business rather than that of breeding a toxic daughter, beautiful but unlovable. And just then I remember how we went for a walk through the park behind Domus Aurea one day and I was angry because he hadn’t listened (or maybe hadn’t heard) and we passed the Datura in full [...]
The Downside of Superpowers Invisibility makes you aloof, brute super strength makes you an easy mark for anyone with trucks to haul, no spark of gratitude from them. The truth? Your gift is only special if there’s proof and ordinary mortals want your work to entertain them day and night, til dark, your life a kind of superpower spoof where all you do is turn them on with speed or x-ray sight or teleported flesh, the way you walk through walls or dash through time. Does anybody care about your needs, grant you vacation days, an empty beach? No wonder apathy’s become your crime. _________________________________________________________________________ Allison Joseph lives, writes and teaches in Carbondale, Illinois, where’s she’s part of the creative writing faculty at Southern Illinois University. Her latest books are _My Father’s Kites_ (Steel Toe Press) and _Trace Particles_(Backbone Press).