Home

LIGHTS

She yanks her back door open,
yells at her neighbor’s porch lights—
“You’re revved up
2500 times more than normal,
and I’m not gonna put up with it.”
Door slam. She

thinks my bird feeder steals
her electricity, that spies
make her toilet flush.
Tonight’s lights, rabid

dogs, leap through her window,
pin her while everybody
loves Raymond. She fights back
hard, but teeth vampire her skin.
Paws push her

deep in the rug--lights burn
and burn, have her for dinner.

Current Issue

Previous Issue

Editor's Note

Guidelines

Mail

ORAL REPORT

She begins: I’m a Christian. I’m
not homophobic. But, she says,
she’s unaccepting. What makes her
not a homophobe? She says it’s
love. She loves gay people. She’s
not like bashers or kids
who use “faggot” as their favorite insult. So,

she smiles kindly like women
handing out missionary tracts
in front of the gym on Saturday morning.
Unaccepting. And she’s a sweet person,
I admit. I like her. Knowing
the basher doesn’t need baseball bats

and knives. A nasty law will do.
A loving smile.

BELLS

When I read out loud
Gray’s churchyard elegy,
I hear bells. If a Milton’s
buried in that cemetery,

ugh. I look for a funky
Houdini dashing out
of a coffin--“Only kidding!”

Bells—hummingbird
at a feeder, cat climbing
onto my lap. I’m not thinking
about clopping into my grave

just yet. I want bells
to wake the hellebore
from winter sleep, red

undoing snow’s white laces.