No use lying It was the year of many staples, which was better than the year no one cared. Tommy knew I was about to have an agenda so he said, Don’t have an agenda. I will sleep with my face pressed against a copy of Das Kapital – thinking big, effecting change. If they were asked to define capital they ...

Depth Hoar Nightfall hot and edgy; Emily at an angle of repose, down to damp tick, watching edging on the windows, craving wind. A triple meter plays          in the parlor; floors          screak as Catch crosses to the player's needle          set at edge again,          viola and crackling. Insisting on sinking eyes, and finally, a slab of snow where wall would be, a widening crack in the slope prior ...

BRASSIER Red-eye slough on her animated like, clear jag, nay redness, broke into pieces. Those pieces into pieces, ay. Auto-hero mother dosing high chance with real mews at her mouth, frill on her winered jaw. All sang in sun-dark there, way alone, local. Lazy coins gave out as bet to some old thought. Con the row. Fat ailbox ...

      Daisy Atterbury is based in Brooklyn and Santa Fe, and she works in video, sculpture and other media. She runs NM Poetics, a small art school in northern New Mexico. Her work can be found at daisyatterbury.com.

Form Farm I. A short story flops along the banks of the river until it is thrown back in. A song escapes into the yard and loiters around the neighborhood. My mama sent my novel to stay with a family who lives in the country. II. It depends on what you mean by real, by algorithm, by meat containers, by Ada Lovelace, by physical world. You argue that ...

Sent from my iRobot Roomba 790 Sent from my iChef Oven Sent from my Joye eGo e-Cigarette Sent from my Sharp 90-inch LED Aquos TV Sent from my Logitech Harmony 880 Advanced Universal Remote Control Sent from my Xbox 720 Console Sent from my Apple iPad MC705LL/A Sent from my Nest Learning Thermostat Sent from my Nespresso Maestria Coffee Machine Sent from my Roku ...

I. The Human Infrastructure Representative’s clients never thought of their insides as inner frameworks or fundamental facilities serving their bodies until he said things like, Your bodies are entire countries listening or it’s like you’re grasping for pocket watches with time capsules, which of course the clients translated to: eat more arugula and always tip your doctor. The Human Infrastructure Representative, on the other ...

10Parrots announcing                          Dinosaur hooks on wing crooksLife upon life               Insect chords A fork-tailed wood nymphYou say A double-toothed kite?                                                Pink bulbsYou say Fishtail palm                                     Large leaves dropping A march of holes across a leaf                  Scanning for monkeysYou say I don’t like the sounds hereYou say We can use that leaf as sandpaper to smooth You say Can you tell ...

William Upon William A hooded gust splits across a vulgar chimney and waves up over the mantle, marble carvings, all white and veiny meaningless reliefs, inhaled by scores of Sarahs remembering the same river, the hanging drone of day, their same selves in the one low boat, and more arriving in fall, docile as uniformed jellies. The painting of a blank dog on ...

Roger, incredibly, stepped out of his apartment in 2005 wearing the first top hat, its brim of felted beaver fur slowly replaced, in the seven inches between its extremes, by silk plush, met with resistance by the base’s attachment to beaver, a hat invented by god-knows-who as a defensive response to science’s announcement that it ...

the first crossing                                  now his neck is folded through with water and the coals have burned and the metal has forged the mane. this skin won’t split. see                    how we make our men: slowly, with heat at first              and blood eyes that drum so quickly set to aspic, to glass              in the flood     Josephine Roele is a senior at Edinburgh University in ...

  Woody Divers Love Planet Libra She said we love the speculative nature of thingness in penny red a movement of fingers in a line of seesaws and beeswax If it’s enough to cave among the shy repeating scarlet and braiding suns better to embrace an expansive niche under all those photons to be green and dangerous that’s all I can say it’s light if it's light or nothing   Syllables Are Romantic There is no ...

Touch a Truck Day  Massive understatement, over the Delaware and into a mall. The first gasp at underwater breathing. Loud bed through air – the flying question. Someone retrieve the gallop as it turns into a revolutionary song. Become some clouds over commerce. The horror of lack of commerce. Options are limited, but there’s still Eternal Truth Tax Services.  Military boards first, or their yearning families, tattoos of ...

1. A negative image has an inverse, the monochrome positive. The image stays the same, but the black and white tones exchange places. 2. In the studio, she photographs dreams. She constructs images that can never exist outside of the frame. Through meticulous composition, she makes the space where a woman’s shoulder meets her torso into ...

Grand Variety at the Community College where I clean the students are virgins of stone and I stick my blue gum into the carved wrinkles in their jeans the girls show their lust in run-on sentences while a tiny mustache grows on a young jock/slacker I am an actress so whatever job I take on is a performance art piece especially when I ...

Mistakes of the Last Month I bought wine when I wanted to leave. I said yes or I said no. Overate, went to bed early. Let my perfume get hot in the trunk. Lent a pen. Didn’t finish and finished too fast. I forgot sunscreen and planted flour specks over brown spots. Burst a blood vessel in the pad of my ...

Waxing or Waning, We Didn’t Know We were stirring pitchers of juleps. The hummingbirds were sparring. Poverty dawned on us. I said if hummingbirds were as big as poverties, we’d all be sipped through the beaks of plantation owners who loll on their porches in the closed books of historical libraries. Have you seen how that trembling bullet pauses ...

IMAGINARY CATS The truth of the matter was I could never return to the whiskers quilled and dull. There were tufts everywhere. I’d spent too many years hoveled in trees, too many dense years inside a parable for one type of loneliness. Here is how to enamor yourself to no one: erect a small army of air, papier-mache its invisible structure over ...

Ruins Everyone is getting engaged at the top of Machu Picchu. It’s so romantic and terrible starting something new on what they think is the top of the world, but is only the top of a mountain. Pizarro never would have won without the help of jealous tribes. Nonetheless it’s impressive. All those rings.   Sneeze No one says bless you anymore because it doesn’t matter. There’s no soul coming ...

Influential Ghosts dear mothers, dear daughters, dear pen-pals, fellow students, former employees, professors, educators in general, dear somebody else’s headache, dear mistake or accident, dear wistful woman, why so sad, dear solitude, dearly departed, why your hand, dear empathy, dear nuanced understanding, dear plight of the advanced professional, dear single looking for a partner, dear partner, dearest,                                                   I’m just so bored, Rachel                                                   I confess I have no inner resources                                                           other resources include:                                                           my family                                                           a woman’s body                                                           an art v. love complex                                                           particular sound   Fellowship I live alone with ...

SO EMOTIONAL I had the good fortune of Whitney Houston dying the week before my mother did. The soundtrack to my first trip to the hospital was songs I sang in fourth grade at lunch; “So Emotional,” “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” “I Will Always Love You.” My mom hated Whitney Houston’s version of “I Will Always Love You.” She said that wasn’t singing, ...

it’s in the math room when the boys fantasize first about the black girl called Frankie who shot herself with her toes around the trigger. the boys slump at their desks in wrinkled khaki and muddy boots, they flick their thick unwashed hair back and rub their tongues over fever blisters. after death Frankie wore ribbons on her skull and tied them around other things like nightmares. Frankie she was called and she was a black girl ...

Julia Kristeva spits on my Achilles tendon while my Adam's apple combs lice from Adrienne Rich's wigs  as she gossips about my Alcock's canal when my artery of Adamkiewicz sidles up to Anne McClintock as she burrows into my Bachmann's bundle while it curls up with Annette Kolodny as she comes and coils over my ...

THEY ARE LEAVING YOU A MESSAGE for Arda Collins What they are trying to tell you is you are wearing the wrong bra for your shape and situation This might not even be your life and in the midst of my thinking to tell you this a fruit fly has begun to trail me through the house as if I were its mother ...

a little depressed, my syntax a little grammatical, my machismo a little status quo, my violence a little problematic, my allergens a little crowdsourced, my oaths a little pointed, my graphic design a little nostalgic, my irony a little chez moi, my cuisine a little automatic, my disability a little tolerant, my pedagogy a little real-life, my reservations a little economic, my aboutness a little arch, my ...

TWAIN after Shania It is Sunday evening You’ve been out Who with Whose hood did you pop Whose coozie sleeved your Bud while rigs whistled down I-10 unheard Whose truck has your lawn been under Whose screen door have you sprained Whose fingers tangled your fringe From whose lacy things have you come un stained Whose braids have you un done while I was asleep out in the ...

THE LAUGH OF THE MINOTAUR Cixous (1975) an excerpt from a forthcoming Ugly Duckling Presse book I shall speak about men’s writing: about what it will do. Man must write his self: must write about men and bring men to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as form their bodies—for the same reasons, by ...

A PLOT A crystal sheet warmed and knife-pleated into a fan. Good noise. Very wide paved path with bosquets and quincunx. Two gaudy legs on the putti. Carved ivory dentures. A chair made from a barrel. A plank across an all-eating swamp. String of hooks. A partial flea comb, dice, and fine heap of copper. Holes into the outside. Cradles for members. A flat ...

PRESENT One thing that worries me is that I might not be present at the right place at the right moment. When I’m sleeping there‘s likely something happening that I should be present at, but when I’m awake it’s even worse. If it’s something I know about, but don’t go to it’s the worst. The only ...

Riding in Cars with Boys Maybe Jeff will kiss you or maybe he’ll take you on a date to a Chinese restaurant & talk about vegan food but right now alone in a car with a boy in a boy’s own car at night & sitting there with a person with a penis driving a person who is not ...

Her First Mid-Life Crisis It’s a good excuse to walk in the opposite direction. South is the new North or the map has forced creases. Onto the pill stage. The petals curling on the kitchen counter, the spider plants needing water—everything becomes a symbol. Symbol me this: Her nightly ibuprofen in the form of listening to pine trees creak at four in the morning. His beard stubble in ...

You in a fur coat Me in a cur coat Me in a fur coat first You with the idea of The fur coat first Christina Drill comes from New Jersey but currently lives in Panama. She writes about pop culture here, takes photos here, and co-edits the soon-to-launch e-zine, Pieces of Cake. She tweets here.

Name: means victory. For warsome people, that’s comfort. Strong-legged goddess. Nearsighted and fleet. DOB: crystallization/nucleation/light of Hunger Moon became                                                             SS#: convergence and retention once the first small crystal ...

Cream-Colored Weapon For the Woman in the Blue Bra It was thick The entire fascist room With anti-intellectual and war-mongering Feelings Capital letters were written In a spiral pattern on my body And in a mine In the familiar triangle Some comments about unemployment Touched me on the face But yet my face was in your hair So I breathed fine. I said Fuck the certain price of goods Fuck ...

What does it mean to be Romantic? To wake up each night in a terror sweat dreaming about Napoleon. Napoleon un- dressing Napoleon. I dream I am Mont Blanc and contain a powerful chasm. I capture Napoleon and roll him up like a hog in a blanket. I roll him up like a little roast. Here in the poetry of passing thoughts we ...

INSTRUCTION My father and I stand in front of his bathroom mirror He is shaving with his antique kit He stops, looks at me in the mirror His child He says, If anyone ever steals you away poke out the abductor's eye I can run, I say – No – take your finger and get it into his socket behind the eye then pull forward     MOTHER ...

Grown, No Thank You Whating maketh me feel so big a hate     Them lily-livering bitch-faced strangler women     Of a breed I am usually want to love with mine squalling pucey bosom     I love them bitch-faced babes on usual    Oh no not this time    Yes this timing is wrong     I think about it and it is like one big yellow green loogie ...

I go to the pool to see her. The orange girl. I call her this because she is. The unreal color of fruit. I live in a building that is as big as a block. It used to be a factory, I guess. It is full of people with very small dogs. The halls are long and ...

Lifting Belly a magazine of 18 a terminus 8 adjoins more prizes 21 again 8, 23, 25 all around 13, 23 and a hand 31 and a resemblance 14 and action and voices 19 and Caesar 30 and emergencies 47 and roses 4 and the intention 30 asks many more 26 can change to filling petunia 60 can perform aquatics 53 can see the condition 47 captures 26 comes extra 32 connects 25 etcetera 31 excuses ...

DRANK A PINE TREE In a week you can so love someone Take them to the woods Wrap them in a fur cloak Point out tremendous lichen Singe a steak bone   Then move into the woods This is an experiment Like a sugared nut that settles the stomach Like how the planets are confused   This is why a dull tuft of grass greeted us this ...

WOMEN FALL Women fall for blazers. Women fall into fashion. Women fall into overtime. Women fall short. Women fall short to friends.  Women fall taller.  Women fall in love. Women fall out of love. Make women fall in love with you. Women fall in love with you. Women fall victim to love curse. (Parts of the brain are activated, ...

What does Narcissus do? In this respect, few can rival the thoroughness he displays in addressing skin-deep problems by nature of his morning routine. Anxieties about any image in a Girl’s Mirror - whether the meanings of noses and of names, secrets of blackheads and freckles, the nuance of blushing in and around superfluous hairs ...

September 11th wasn’t called that in the first hours and days when you first called your friends and mother and wondered what What did you say? You looked up, the sky offered no suggestions. The leaves were heavy not ready to fall. It’s not that this has never happened before it’s just that you’ve never gotten here on time. The sun was ...

I pulled out my hair, chewed, then ate it.     I punish myself.     Like I don’t know ‘big’ words and just other things.     My bedframe is made of very soft wood and you can see hundreds of bite marks in the headboard.     If I’m running real fast, I ...