April 2014 | back-issues, poetry
He steps outside of his putty house
and stares at the midnight sun;
catches flurries
of pastel colored barnacles on his tongue.
Candy-coated cigarettes, puffed in
rings of lavender scented mist toward the stars.
The humans make their way through slush
and liquid concrete.
Golf cart garbage men
slip between
alleys and nail polish junkies lounge against
fence posts. Their chests are closed, sewed –
bits of stitching here – and there.
In his restaurant, teetering
over a silken sea,
the hearts cook in pots of oil, thick
and oozing. Sizzle! POP!
They hiss like lightning,
tremble with birdsong.
“Order Up!”
Hollow wooden waiters serve them, still
beating on icy plates.
Grapefruit-sized holes gape
in each patron’s chest.
Their noses sniff, perk; not seeing
but still, the smell of warmth, touch.
Flesh.
Roses on Valentine’s Day and love notes,
familiar raised lines and loops –
like braille, flattened
by starvation.
Pink blood
spills onto the clouds,
(Cumulonimbus)
as they gobble with paws and claws.
He watches, as he does every day,
through glasses of mantis shrimp eyes,
and waits for sunrise.
—Gabrielle Tyson
April 2014 | back-issues, poetry
White warriors posted in the wind,
arms moving like synchronized swimmers
to a symphony of corn husks and diesel engines.
I see them towering in the distance like watchful
giants of a fairy tale once told. I am so small
and insignificant when standing next to them,
these monoliths woven into the heartland’s quilted fields.
You laugh at my imagination, I am silly you say.
They are our instruments of servitude, our slavers
built in dirt. They are our prophets, our masters,
our gods divined of necessity.
Three arms that go round and round like a prayer
to a trinity, a hallmark of destiny-
too fast for Quixote, not fast enough for dead dinosaurs.
—Sonya N. Groves
Sonya Groves is a teacher of English and History in San Antonio. She has published a short story in the Abydos Education Journal and has poetry publications in La Noria, The Voices Project, Aries, and Cliterature. Also, she has been a conference presenter at the East Carolina University Multi-Cultural Literature Review Conference. Currently she is pursuing her Master’s degree in English at Our Lady of the Lake University.
April 2014 | back-issues, poetry
Symmetry
I look up at your face and can see
that you’re a little worried, too.
I know all about your oh-so-green dietary plan,
but in this bar
there isn’t even a salad.
What I really want is buffalo wings.
I swallow hard and do my best to smile.
You frown at the menu and finally gesture
for the waitress to bring a pitcher.
A date doesn’t require food.
Beer is enough,
right?
We lace our fingers,
tense around the glasses.
We have everything else in common,
everybody is always saying.
Our scuffed green Converse touch
as our heads bob like springs on our necks.
I resist the urge to differ on purpose –
“Oh no, I hate watching football.
So violent!”
But, I like football.
And cars and hikes and kissing in the snow.
I don’t mention that last one.
Not yet.
You go on about Queen and Zeppelin
and I wonder at how your lips shape words.
And I hope the beer is enough.
Heather
She sits next to me in class.
I feel her Tiger’s Eyes study
the pink warmth crawling down my nape.
She lounges at her desk, legs crossed,
leans toward me
possessively.
Her fingers wrap around my arm
and I imagine the heat
of her skin branding a scar.
But it doesn’t.
Not yet.
Her smile is eager. Feral –
a predator’s seductive smirk.
A distinctly feminine scent lingers
in my throat; burns
sweetly.
“I like you,” she says.
It’s that easy.
—Gabrielle Tyson
