The Ranch Cook

Too many scars on her hands grasping
The paring knife tightly, chopping
Another pile of onions and carrots
Hired hands come in dirty, wash up
At the back door, she attends the cutting
Board, her apron yellowed but clean
A thin stew simmering on the back
Of the stove, one man pats her butt
Affectionately, she still smiles
To herself, waiting for the question
Even after these twenty years.

By Emily Strauss

Dragonfly

Shh the dizzy hum,
Listen little one.
You flutter by, a glassy butterfly
And tiptoe
A blueish tune.

By Delaney Gibbs

The New

Where now is the adventure?
Bounded horizon
Return of the goddess as it were

Elbow deep
Terse then tightening. If you were a pound heavier I’d fit you in this bottle

If the flowers die in Winter, will you?
Insects still mate, that cold stone still breaths

Toy in hand
That Yellow Chevy that poked your bones with fat.

By Mathew Lee Nelson

Happiness

The dog isn’t happy
unless his head is
sticking out the car window.

The man isn’t happy
unless his head is
happy.

The man and the dog
have this in common,
thinks the man,

driving around with his dog
in the backseat, nose
in the wind, happiness

in the air.

By Paul Hostovsky

Makeshift Bookcase

After lifting
cinder blocks,
how light
the poems.

By Paul Hostovsky

Violence

She flicked her hand -
it was nothing to her
backhanding the innocent space.
There was
nothing
but the annoyed swirl of air
she made
at what she almost said.
I hated it.

By Piper Rasmussen

We sat side by side, watching an uncomfortably raunchy Adult Swim program that he loved, until a storm rolled in. The skies darkened and rain beat oppressively over the house all at once. I felt apocalyptic black energy and a lack of safety, superstition, something. We got up without needing to say anything, gathered my belongings and ventured outside the very second the rain slowed.

Our drive was mostly silent, a normal and mutual status in our friendship, but even that was laced this time with uneasiness, as if some movie was about to roll the credits. I blurted something about being afraid, about change looming. I asked him if he knew what I meant and he reassured me in an emotionless tone that my new job wouldn’t be too hard, I would be trained sufficiently and patience would be administered as I learned.

I countered that the change felt bigger than that, and I didn’t know what would happen. I wondered what the new climate would mean for us as friends and as human beings. And then I finally asked, “What if I change?”

My greatest fear, and this time the silence that settled over us was suffocating.


By Kendra L. Saunders

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