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Monday, January 29, 2018

#255: Three Poems by Gregory Luce


~This poem was first published in Logical Reader (1997).





“Better git it in your soul”
(for Jim)

Better embrace it like Mingus’
bass, stroke it, caress it, pull it in,
draw it like smoke, drink it
like old bourbon burning
all the way down.
Then give it back.



 *****

Monday, January 22, 2018

#254: "N.O.M.E." by Hildie Block


~This story was previously published in The First Line (2005).






"That was the best game we've ever had!"  Her eyes were shining as the setting sun glinted off her long dark hair with the pink streaks.  She looked like a little girl instead.  Instead of the 25 year-old with a wasted B.A. in English, suffocating as an administrative assistant that she was.
He dumped the Scrabble tiles into the box without another thought.  She suddenly looked like she'd been stabbed. 
            "What are you doing!"  She was standing and looked agitated.  She was digging her nails into her palms.  The blood started to drip again.  He wondered, not for the first time, why she filed her nails to a point.
He looked shocked.  "Wha' "
"The perfect game!  The perfect game!  It's gone!"
She sat down and looked about to sob.  He looked around the park to make sure no one was looking.  "Look," he said covering her hand with his, "we know we played the perfect game.  We know we did it, finally, we used every tile, and we know the score was exactly even."  The wind stirred the leaves at his feet.  He put his hand in his pocket, fingering the blue velvet box that he kept there like a talisman – the box that would come so close to making a public appearance and then disappear again-- and instead grabbed a clean napkin from lunch.  "Here," he said, handing it to her so she could dry her hands.  She stood, wiped her hands, shook her head, as if to shake a thought out of it and then smiled -- off they went for coffee at the new place around the corner, as planned.
*************

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

#253: Two Poems by Esteban Colon


~Selected by Clara Jane Hallar, assistant editor for poetry


Before the Storm

~This poem was previously published in After Hours (2014).

polka dot dress traced love on
Japanese streets
                        chalk
saying what cards never could,
waited
            for a mother she never met,
till
foster parents dragged her inside
drowning in the downpour
like
drawings
erased in the rain


 *****