i noticed        a glitch                         in the matrix

it happened               while you were

sleeping                     a quick burst                the air

outside                                  warping

like                            melted glass

the greeks said                       that the world

is a shadow    on a cave wall

the blurred silhouette            of the real thing

we are not     blind just         sheltered

a few years ago          a man               entered the movie theater

pointed a gun        at the first row        and fired     until     the credits rolled

the man         on the screen   points the gun  at the camera

i stare down   the barrel         wondering if i will not die

but instead                wake up                       in a different body

maybe the one                       standing                       backlit             in a cave

if i do,                        promise            to visit

enter cautiously         and pull the curtain     behind you

we have not   seen light         in a few years

and our pupils                       need time         to adjust

Waters swept the youngest away.

comets came crashing down upon the mountains,

mountains like teeth and comets like eyes.

Campfire sessions dulled as the winter went on.

A leper cried out for relief

shed her skin and waded her bones into the water—

a miracle. The word was new.

Mud became walls,

wheat maggot-rotted,

bison died of their feed,

the king gave the last of the meat to his son

who greased his lips and faded into Bellum’s breath.

Pomegranates stained the fingers of children like blood.

Grapes fermented into wine and led sons to the sea,

sailors cried out to the tempest, and were received by thunder

as their fathers dragged their myrtle wreathed sisters to the cliff’s edge

like heifers.

Arcadia descended into empires, and empires into antiquity.

The widow cast off her dregs at the sight of the cresting tides.

Music spewed forth from a shepherd’s mouth and moved

those in the mountains to pluck out their hearts as offerings to the sun.

And a still pool of water reflected the moon’s outstretched palm and rose

into waves, and I was very much afraid.

EMMA HOFFMAN, 18, is a student at Newark Academy in Livingston, NJ. She recently attended the Iowa Young Writer’s Studio and The Kenyon Review Young Writers’ Workshop. Her work has been published in The Louisville Review, Canvas, and Polyphony H.S.

Off time’s grid,

it’s some weird Dakota summer;

sounds of the state fair in the valley

drift up our hill like bad soup

no sugar can fix.

We are frequently dipped in pots in junior high

that say LSD will ruin you

and you will jump from a building

thinking the scruff under your arms is the rooting

of feathers like Art Linkletter’s daughter

or someone will drop a fizzy blotter

in your soda pop before you swallow;

you will swear your skin is broken glass

raked over your ribs like dead damn leaves.

Meanwhile, at the midway,

the acid mothers’ babies

in jars of formaldehyde, pickled predictions—

flippers not feet, a third ear—

for anyone who takes narcotics,

who licks the wrong stamp,

who cuts into foreheads

and wears a psychedelic soaked bandana

with the panache of a guitar virtuoso

anesthetizing anthems in an upstate field.

These things never came to pass,

though I worried about ever leaving

my Coke alone,

my hand over its mouth,

its thud flat at the back of my throat

when I shouldn’t have drunk the drug,

let alone swallowed.

I knew you when you were a fisherman.

When your hands, chapped by years

of salt and sea and wind and rain

caressed the wrinkles from my face,

wiped away my fears,

sent me young from the sailboat

you could never say you owned.

I knew you when you were a trout.

When your silvery fins flashed

by moonlight or star, your lithe body

parting the sea better than Moses

dared dream when he begged

his god to cast off his chains.

I knew you when you were a poor child.

When you were begging for scraps of bread

on street corners. Urchins were your only

friends, but the night sky set you free

to dance alone in a world lit golden

by the smiles of your many faces.

I knew you when you were green.

When the sun couldn’t touch you

without gasping in delight at what

wonders it had brought forth, for the

acorn had flourished in brambles, now

its branches crested the top of the world.

I knew you when you were a fisherman.

When the chop and spray and rushing wind

tipped you from the hollowed out log

my grandfather carved for you with

a song and a promise. Castaways

never last long except in comic books,

and this was never a story worth telling.

I knew you when you dragged yourself

out of that pit you were born in.

I knew you when they dropped you

into that pit you stayed in.

LUKE HENTER is a high school senior from Charlottesville, Virginia. A proud graduate of the Iowa Young Writers Studio and Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop, his work has been published in Textploit, Phosphene Journal, and Inklette. Both his poetry and prose have been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. He likes dark chocolate and warm sunny days, harbors dreams of becoming a professional world traveler, and has an intense fear of spiders. His most prized possession is a rubber poison dart frog named Penelope.

Stakeout the Stakeout

unmarked cop car

parks outside our apartment

complete w/ aviatored pigs

& code words for the county king

and suddenly we’re

staking out the stakeout—

or if they’re only chicken

pranksters, faking out the fakeout—

un-cupboarding binoculars

holstering homemade mace

(just in case) they resort

to full-metal storming the place

akin to looking in a two-

way mirror, we abhor the beasts

we are becoming

a special-ops staring contest

where each squad picks

a winner not by citing speed but stalling

aiming long-haul w/o breathing

undercover, underwater even

the enemy begins to

leak his weakness, needing

caffeine     tobacco

hoagie           doughnut

but by that time

we’ve already replaced our heady gaze

w/ braced stuffed animals

& balancing broom handles

b/c the only way to

shake a stakeout is to

take the long-awaited

look-away & lose the

lay-low                                     lair

torch the place & watch it burn

hands-reeking-o-line

                                                            oops did i do that?

                  fuck             yes           i        did

it’s how you redecorate      the dead

    their preferred palate:

white flame

nest-bounded by burn-baby-burned blues    barbequing you

 to glow

shades of sun     fading to          grayscale cinders

the satisfaction’s           in        the     spectacle

whether you’re  delinquent relinquishing

      the trauma site of history      (hissing)

or        pure covering up    the all-too-common crimes

you or your lovers committed

dragging (conveniently located) gas

     or opening its passage to diffuse

—the world so full   of flammables—

each sketch the interior    inevitably fiery

      completed    with a final gesture

 the flick of a match

 or lighter lowered

commence

smoldering

to an infrastructure of ash

flames reflect off your eyes

attention

running away

vengeance

faking yr own death       all       require

      a proper torch      to see

  the escape enabling us

    to get   away        with

      everything

DYLAN KRIEGER and VINCENT CELLUCCI are partners in crime and poetry in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where they each earned an MFA in creative writing from LSU. Dylan has published work in Quarterly West, Deluge, Juked, So and So, Small Po[r]tions, Smoking Glue Gun, TENDE RLOIN, and Psychopomp. Titles from Vincent include An Easy Place/To Die, Fuck Poems, come back river, and _A Ship on the Line.

thug \ˈthəg\

1.

the “v” overturned between the thighs

with feet in opposition to one another

like a city

2.

standing nights that attract ash-fed speculators

like moths to fan at the flames

3.

flesh layered with scrolls & hieroglyphics one leaves

behind to tell his story—the story that bleeds red, burns

black, ages green (if it ages at all)—

4.

a word slurred by neighborhood clones congregating

with red plastic cups, brown paper bags, white tees, khakis

(a gravitational conundrum), pockets bony with lint, or bulged

from lighter, razor, small sacks of numbing agents, Swisher

Sweets, & a hypnotic glow that heavies the waistband

underneath the chosen street light

5.

a title issued out into pigment

who can’t tell you the meaning of the word,

only that if we hear it enough

it must be our name

CHAUN BALLARD  is a poet and photographer who was raised in both Missouri and California. For six years now, he and his wife have been teaching in the Middle East and West Africa. He is a graduate student in the University of Alaska, Anchorage’s MFA Program. He’s had poems published or forthcoming in The Caribbean Writer, Grist: The Journal for Writers, Sukoon, Orbis: Quarterly International Literary Journal, Apogee, Off the Coast, and other literary magazines. His photos can be seen in the latest issues of Gravel and The Silk Road Review.

When a

mackerel

hit my line

the drag

sang like a baritone sax

in a dance band—

in five minutes

he was halfway

to Portugal

where the big boats come in—

but my son

reeled him back

from his long swim

in handcuffs

all the blood

in his body gone

like butter—

someone

tipped off the law

he said

over and over

again

in a movie

like when

a man

nervously

smokes a cigarette

before hanging

JOHN STUPP is the author of the 2007 Main Street Rag chapbook, The Blue Pacific, and the 2015 full-length collection, Advice from the Bed of a Friend, also by Main Street Rag. He has lived and worked in various states as a jazz musician, university instructor, taxi driver, radio news writer, waiter, auto factory laborer and paralegal.