The perfect heart-shaped rock on the beach.
Look up to count the gulls on the waves,
look down and there it is,
glistening with mica, shrouded with kelp

NAN sits in a rocking chair, wrapping pictures and knick-knacks in newspaper and placing them carefully in a card board box. Off stage, there are voices. A man’s voice rises above the others.

In the dark layers of the creek,
microbial life filters
through murky water
tainted by birds’ feet and dirty leaves.

My childhood fossilizedin a momentas my handprint displacesplaster leavingmy palm lifelines stunted;forensic decades cling dustto my unique ridges and whirlsembalmed in miniature replicasuntil I blow the evidence awaywith its discoveryin Mom’s dresser. The… Continue reading →

…at a tea party, propped up by red velvet pillows around a table whose feet are lion’s paws. I’m a grey kitty with white boots, my back arched in a big stretch as… Continue reading →

***Mario Loprete is an Italian artist who has distinguished himself in the contemporary art scene through innovative use of materials and a unique vision of urban art. His work lies at the crossroads… Continue reading →

The older I get, the more I
crave patience. Striving for
salvation like some false Job…

ALL WITCHES: Mandragora, henbane, hemlock, slay! Shakespeare puked out a terrible play.

(Lights on WILL. He’s unaware of WITCHES.)

WILL: Gah! The King’s Men are a shambles. Great Burbage, my Macbeth, heaves over his puke
bucket. Fierce retches that shake the Globe’s very timbers.

A stone for the Ebb.
A stone for the Hill.
A stone for the Kirkyard…

MAY is sitting center in a chair, frozen, staring out the window. She is awaiting the arrival of her husband, AUGUST. There is a terrible twister on the horizon, and MAY is not stirred, not for her husband, not for herself. She is not stirred, even a bit. RAINMAKER enters, moving not unlike a snake…

White Grandma caught the Holy Ghost in the woods
with her dolls made of twigs and scrap cloth
who lived in houses of bark carpeted
with carefully hunted and cut sheets of moss…

Enveloping mist. An open, benchless section of Washington music wafts in, played forlornly in the distance. FORREST, jeans, vintage team jacket, Converse Chuck Taylors, is staring at someone in the distance. He makes a gesture: a half-wave, salute, maybe a self-effacing “who, me?” to invite contact via a coded signal…

Even now, Mom’s sock basket is full
of wayward mates and dryer sheets,
unraveling undies, threadbare dusting rags…

Jeanette and I were sitting on the settee in our living room, which had recently been recovered in fashionable black leatherette. The settee that is, not the living room. Jeanette was my best friend, and was part of a large family that lived further up the road on Richmond Terrace…

***Bill Wolak has just published his eighteenth book of poetry entitled All the Wind’s Unfinished Kisses with Ekstasis Editions. His collages and photographs have appeared as cover art for such magazines as Phoebe,… Continue reading →

The moon hasn’t cycled. 
How long has it been stuck at new?
The light, so cautious…

Lights rise in a field. Or a cave. Somewhere spooky and appropriate for Druidian shenanigans. The four DRUIDS enter, dramatically, each holding a jar or jar-like vessel. Their entrance is probably underscored by a piece of classical music that is unabashedly dramatic…

I was nearing thirty, and I knew I wanted to find a husband and have children one day soon. I worked as a credit analyst in a bank in midtown and lived at… Continue reading →

***Christopher Woods is a writer and photographer who lives in Texas. He has published a novel, The Dream Patch, a prose collection, Under a Riverbed Sky, and a poetry collection, Maybe Birds Would… Continue reading →

I woke, opened my eyes and saw
the pale yellow quarter moon
through slats of blinds,
and the world seemed to wake…

The Lieder Galaxy, near Nameless Planet 86-9. A small outer space pod, big enough for
three people if they sit close together, hovering over the planet. Late afternoon, not far from sunset…

You were always just there, like March air,
like the skin I don’t think about wearing
that protects me from everything beyond me.
I think of you when I see cinderblocks…

Three female friends since college, all now in their early 50’s, are in the Saint Louis Cemetery at midnight, carrying flashlights, a coffee can, and a backpack as they reach their destination: the crypt of Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau…