Poetry Summer 2017 fiction all issues
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Cover Marija Zaric
Kathryn Merwin
For Aaron, Disenchanted
& other poems
William Stevens
Celestial Bodies
& other poems
Kendra Poole
Take-Off, or The Philosophy of Leaving
& other poems
AJ Powell
Mama Atlas
& other poems
Matt Farrell
Waves in the dark
& other poems
Timothy Walsh
Eating a Horsemeat Sandwich at Astana Airport
& other poems
Nancy Rakoczy
Adam
& other poems
Joshua Levy
Venezuela Evening
& other poems
Ryan Lawrence
Vegan Teen Daughter vs. Worthless Dad
& other poems
George Longenecker
Yard Sale
& other poems
Susanna Kittredge
My Heart
& other poems
Morgan Gilson
Dostoevsky
& other poems
Jim Pascual Agustin
The Annihilation of Bees
& other poems
Taylor Bell
Browsing Tinder in an Aldi
& other poems
David Anderson
Continental Rift
& other poems
Charles McGregor
The Boys That Don’t Know
& other poems
Cameron Scott
Ashes to Smashes, Dust to Rust
& other poems
Kenneth Homer
Inferno Redux
& other poems
Alice Ashe
lilith
& other poems
Kimberly Sailor
Marriage's Weekly Schedule
& other poems
Kim Alfred
Soul Eclipse
& other poems
Ryan Lawrence
A Buffer, Douchier Me
They could be up to no good,
these doubles of mine: coming in
and out of my life and muddling things,
though they’re usually benign like customers
at happy hour, literally the case
during our $1 oyster special,
which really packs ’em in between 4 and 5,
when this one showed up
in tattoos and crisp jeans:
my buffer, douchier doppelgänger
according to Carinne who spotted him
as he put his name on the wait list,
and put his braceleted hand
at the waist of his ladyfriend,
who perhaps was a fit and tanned variant of another,
but I was only interested in him,
who I have to admit,
under his gelled head (still wearing shades),
looked liked me, but buffer,
and showcased it with a tight tee,
veiny arms bulging out,
though on the scale of buffness,
from dad bod to movie ripped,
I’m near the middle, a solid 4 at least,
a suggestion of muscles
and faint boundaries drawn on skin,
an archipelago of abs just below,
which I examined later that night
as I flexed in front of a mirror,
making modest continents emerge,
and wondering where I live
along the latitudes of Doucheland,
and if I can still leave.
Most Memorable Insult
I’ve been dissed and trashed,
put down, poor-mouthed, and shat on,
but only one smear I remember,
only one slander stuck.
It’s when Gina said
You’re nothing but a baby,
and I had just sipped coffee
from a hot paper cup,
I had just taken a hard drag off a smoke
and puffed out as the tip cooled.
I don’t remember what wrung me up,
what made me bawl and rage
and be the swirling blades of a hurricane,
then later the placid eye.
But it’s her addendum that cast
the insult in bronze,
a smoking, coffee-drinking baby,
and the scene it conjured,
that I’m helpless to erase:
fat-cheeked me in a crib
with my bottle on its side,
a dark drip on blue cotton
and bitty nails on chubby fingers
pinching a cig, so slender and white,
as I tremble in anger and start to wail,
but Mom leans in, cupping the light.
Vegan Teen Daughter
vs. Worthless Dad
I gave him the edge,
and figured he’d look like a late-round Rocky
before he’d go down for the count.
She had the strength of youth
and all its extras:
idealism and self-importance
and an iPhone, munitions of data
discharged with a finger-swipe.
I’m a waiter, not a referee,
though I wanted to throw a flag
when she rejected the pommes frites,
having realized the fryer
had been fouled by pork rinds.
That’s not gonna work, she says,
which as a spectator I wanted to applaud.
In forty years I’ve never been that direct.
The mushroom tarte,
no butter or cheese, please.
No problem, I say,
because I know the kitchen is on its toes,
eager for new challenges,
ready to go off script in an instant
because they know an audience
can see more from the seats
than can be seen from the stage.
Dad rushes out the corner
and leads with a half-dozen shrimp,
which arrive pink and curled
beside the dismembered tentacles of an octopus
interred in a hump of ice.
He follows with a combo:
a stack of bones cleaved in two,
the marrow bared and salt-flaked,
then an assload of pig-fat infected frites
circling a kilo of charred beef,
gaping and red as a quartered saint.
She’s gotta be on the ropes,
staggered by the bounty of massacre on the table,
all of it plated on frilly china,
but with her middle finger
shoves her glasses up her nose and says
You had people working under you,
now they’re above.
I want to call the fight,
the dad is done for,
but instead ask if everything is all right
and offer him another glass of wine
like a bucket to spit in.
What are you doing with your life, she says,
a roundhouse swing that glances off him
and gets a piece of me, too.
Stay down stay down
is what I want to yell
when I drop the check
but he lifts his hands and says
I’m not done yet.
Averages
It’s pouring now in Portland,
though usually it’s mist
or soft rain,
which tends to be a little boring,
a run-on sentence
and not a single period of thunder.
Meteorologically speaking,
it’s neither loaded spring or dead coil,
but a drizzling in-between,
better, perhaps, than desert extremes
or a hurricane,
or one on top the other.
If it’s not one thing it’s seventeen,
I’ve heard, but I must admit
it’s nice when it’s nine,
cruising through
the flat averages of life,
not a care or curve in sight,
instead of like the squirrel I’ve heard about,
starving and lost,
thinking it can’t get any worse,
when he’s suddenly struck blind,
and suddenly surrounded by nuts.
Narcosis
My last days will be like each day
before naptime
when I’m gripped by a weariness
that pulls me toward sweet daytime sleep,
though I’m stressed that I haven’t done
what I needed to do,
haven’t even come close,
and I hate that: pleasure being ruined
by regret, and so I seek to shift the balance
by increasing what I get
with a cup of wine, dark and too full
for 2:00, but perfect for letting go
instead of circling the drain of the day
and rowing against the truth:
you can’t do it, it hurts,
so take this and forget it.
Ryan Lawrence
is an award-winning writer living in Portland, OR. His awards include the 1991 Presidential Physical Fitness Award and an Honorable Mention for a science fair project about dinosaurs. His girlfriend, Bailey, adores him occasionally.