Beyond your window, the drooling stars twizzle on their strings. They proclaim: all hail the monkey god. All hail the bollock-headed god of the ripe and arbitrary. The god of late-night radio phone-ins, microplastics and no-cheese pizza.
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Reporter Notes for the Artisanal Vendor of the Year Contest 8:08 Just arrived at Portland Expo Center. Inaugural “Artisanal Vendor of the Year” contest starting in less than an hour. Looks like I’m the only journo here. 8:16 Trouble early on. Bouncer [upper body attire: WWII spitfire pilot; lower body attire: psychedelic troubadour] charged at
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all the tiny mouths There must have been hundreds of them, maybe thousands, but only on the one wall. They fit their small, black bodies closely together by pointing their wings upward, displaying the light tangerine colour beneath. In this way, they painted the wall a warm triptych that made her think of fall and
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And The Oscar Goes to… 1994 – Cher Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Bathroom Attendant 3 strands black/curly/synthetic The hairs flash like a beacon on the bathroom’s white marble tiles. I wrap them in a square of toilet paper and slide them into my uniform pocket. While the who’s who celebrate at their glitzy after-parties, I limp
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In Technicolor Content advisory (highlight to see): sexual assault My cup— Runneth over, Psalm 23:5. But no, not in a bar. —sweats fat droplets of condensation onto the bartop. I run a fingernail along a scar in the wood, adjusting the cardboard coaster. A bear peers up through the amber liquid. I should google bears.
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If We Were In Another Life If we were three-spined sticklebacks, you would light up crimson to warn off other males and I would be honoured and not annoyed, safe instead of smothered, because I’d know you could protect our patch in the stream, and I would follow your proud zig-zag dance through the water
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the Choices We Make We are born. We die. In those events we have no say. We believe what happens between those two events is completely our doing, a result of the choices we make. But you cannot outrun fate. You’re 17 years old, living on a farm north of Philadelphia. One summer day, your
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1210 Days in eight minutes, with playlist This will take eight minutes if read slowly. Stephanie’s and Iz’s second time will take eight minutes. They will move quickly. Before that, another eight minutes to recognize each other. They sit across a round table at the Hyatt in Cleveland, where a small business association’s convention is
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Ruminations on high School biology Lisa Vitale Lisa loves writing and had her first poem published in the local newspaper when she was 6 years old! Her mother also swears the local library published a story she wrote when she was 6 or 7; it’s stuffed somewhere on a dusty shelf in a library on
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Whenua There were three of us already planted in the backyard: Wiremu, Mataī, and me. ‘Why am I the smallest?’ I ask Mama, looking at my tree. ‘Because you were the youngest, Aroha. Don’t you worry, you’ll grow in time.’ She pushes my hair away from my eyes, and smiles. But not like she used