Amanda Sautbine

I started the war. I won't say what side I was on--Union, Confederate; it doesn't matter. I was in love at the time, with someone, and had gotten no sleep the night before. Maybe that was why I pulled the trigger and fired that first shot. Or maybe I was just plain terrified.

David Levine

Iron


I.

I am not a scientist.

All these colder closures, these
sealed hallways you hid,

they are not a threat.


II.

You wanted something tangible.
You would not hold me.



III.

Any other man
would let me breathe sky.

I want wings in my head.


IV.

I have crafted this mass
out of tile and hardwood.

I am tired of your flailing paper jet.

Your world will crash into my wall.


V.

You plant yourself in a new back porch
and point out all my trees.

The birches know.


VI.

I can't see the agency in your ice.
I burrow into dirt beneath high tension wires.

I am not a scientist.

This must be the right place to hide.

Tim Kercher

Nobody in a Foreign Land

Nobody finds himself in a new country
and wonders if here he is somebody.
People stare, some directly, some
covertly, as he walks down the Cypress-
lined streets dotted with mortar holes.
He hears the whispers:
“Who’s that?” “Nobody I know.”
All the somebodies sipping coffee
in their steel-trellis chairs. Nobody
takes a seat and tries to order his own
coffee. But there’s something about
the way he orders, something about
the way his language dials in—
Zero. Zero. Zero. Goes
through his head like a mantra,
as if his very heartbeat is voicing
why his coffee never comes.