Rob Schlegel
Jane Gregory
Lily Ladewig
Juliana Leslie
John Myers
HYSTERIC VARIATION
Rob Schlegel
I scare the birds off shore
by moving my jaw up and down
Amidst the wreckage
a white shirt falls out of the sky
Its arms move like nothing I’ve ever seen
Shapes of bodies vary
as pale spires cast shadows of regular length
over sacred ground
I live nearby
looking out over the water
there is a posture there
and I recognize it
From a distance the horizon is a place
and so is the mind
*
Faces take names for neon fruit
extending safety
into glass colonies, sincere
as my attempt to speak (…)
on behalf of my faith in me
*
I filter grief through notes
gendered mouths cannot release
Out of choice out of love
what progress means to nation
*
Heeding warnings form reveals
lines relieve pressure
trapped beneath doors
floating on the sea
I live in fear till fear becomes
that part of me
Rob Schlegel is the author of The Lesser Fields, winner of the 2009 Colorado Prize for Poetry, and Bloom, winner of the 2010 Midwest Chapbook Prize. His book reviews have appeared in Boston Review, Jacket2 and Pleiades. He currently teaches creative writing and literature at Cornell College and with Daniel Poppick, edits The Catenary Press.
*
LET’S GO FORSWEAR
Jane Gregory
At the cross-bow take aim at the
fox-glove, how far it isn’t from
compel to repulse. An attempt of what
but to get it to you. Your little head
grafted on the window because of the grid
it is. I sleep in the mascot suit and at crosspurposes
with the night. I’ve been outside
to know by the charcoal in the split grass
what the sun collages to exclude: night
night night night night. Goodnight the arena
of the forum of the mind that can’t tell the difference
strung between image and idea, makes one thing
of face and shield. Arrives at face
through shield, the expression of
the memory of the arena of so much
as the backpage advertisement in this stupid book
*
Jane Gregory is from Tucson, Arizona. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and currently lives in Berkeley, where she is a student in the UC Berkeley English department. Her recent work has appeared in JERRY, MARY, and in a chapbook, “Some Books,” published by The Song Cave.
*
from Shadow Boxes
Lily Ladewig
For years I made a living. Making sweaters and cakes. The square of light around. My bedroom door. Also captivated with birds. These boxes are meant to be handled. My skin takes its color. Takes it all. You continue to comment. I tend to have a favorite piece or silhouette I wear constantly until something else catches my eye. The city is the place where. At nightfall our shadows grow up to become choreographers. They instruct the dancers not to touch but to imagine touching. We tried. To make it look antique the usual practice is to stain. The city is the place.
*
Lily Ladewig’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in Absent, Conduit, Denver Quarterly, H_NGM_N, No Tell Motel, and Supermachine. With Anne Cecelia Holmes, she is the co-author of the e-chapbook <em>I Am A Natural Wonder (Blue Hour Press, 2011). She lives in Brooklyn.
*
Something About Finches
Juliana Leslie
I listen to corners where hands fumble
I am a thrush a piece of thread
It proves to be in other skirts
An x in the center laughing
An accent over what
A hum is not powerless to be
I am not the witness of
A swift secondary feature
Wind under a fire
This is only something I said I saw
*
Juliana Leslie is the author of More Radiant Signal, recently published by Letter Machine Editions, and two chapbooks, Pie in the Sky (Braincase Press) and That Obscure Coincidence of Feeling (Dusie Kolektiv). She lives in Santa Cruz, CA and teaches and studies at UC Santa Cruz.
*
Outing
John Myers
The festival these times I feel luck hard
as a caramel. We both run orchards
out our minds and I want to see you smile
again the way you do it in the mush.
Now that the festival is generous
we like mice, organic mice, because they
blink in unison, forget to stammer
and he, himself, unfurls, jars shut with, yes,
nails in their mouths—nails!—if you like them, when
my moths want to nuzzle, I do apply
alternatives. This proves that I can, in
collusion, know more than you let me. Could,
anyway. I could be static as goods!—
and smooth as any good want. Will I want
is a choice each of us has to make. I
shall give you my wagged, asymptomatic
arms—stepped on? Yes, you are wearing cider,
my mistletoe guesses at your square feet.
As a butterfly in way over its
intercept, I taste easily, I boast
whenever eyes like the feet of flies.
*
John Myers has degrees in biology from Oberlin College and poetry from the University of Montana. Some of the other poems from Cider Kit have appeared in ABJECTIVE and FRiGG, and he collaborated this August with Sarah Gridley and Jessica McGuinness on Equinox Equinox. He works with people who have developmental disabilities in Missoula.