SHANNON IS SEARCHING for the barcode on a box of trash bags when a commotion breaks out near the self-checkout registers. A male voice, strident: “—coupon says buy two get the third free! It’s right here, I’m looking at it!” Dennis’s voice, low and soothing, indistinct. The customer: “It’s only expired by a week!” The fluorescent lights … Continue reading Ant Mill
After Stephanie Kirby The dead baby stepped off the train,Found no one waiting, no one holding aSign printed with a name to be recognizedBut not remembered. Somewhere anIrregular machine beeped. The dead babySaw our broken smiles split as we triedNot to be alone with each other. You, me, And the dead baby. Overhead lights … Continue reading Together
You appear in a class photo of everyone you’ve ever known, garbled knot of your expression. Your guide is a chance operation. Your colors, red and gold. Your parents were pole-sitters, rag-pickers. They found you in a basket of gestures. You’ve been keeping a scrapbook of sticks and grubs, swatches from a sanitary landfill. Like … Continue reading Sooth Saying
HOT WINDS RACED through the canyon, turning the acrid air thick. Desiccated flora spun aimlessly. Creatures lay dead and those dying writhed in agony upon the hard land. Bodies heaved like bellows, tongues flapping over rotting flesh. No man or animal sought inspiration in such turmoil. No thought or habit — good or treacherous … Continue reading Forsaken
I have a little utopia in the middle of an apocalypse I have friends & sesh & fictional escapism I have a palace of mold in a city of unaffordable living I have a sacred space upon land that’s slowly shrinking I have love when all around me I see hate I have unity as … Continue reading Little Utopia
Stems once used as armor, teach me how to harden with tenderness O evergreen perennial.I carry you home with two 40 oz cervezas& some real slim thick incensenamed Renewal. I need to cover the decaythat belongs to the body of yesteryear —the tissue fibers, sinew I tied upin lavender-scented contractor bags.I situated you in the … Continue reading Ode to Bamboo Stalks I Bought at the Liquor Store
Here are Hidden Peak Press' 2023 Pushcart Prize nominees. While Seeking to Understand Her Brother's Death by Camille LebelPainkillers by Julius OlofssonWindmill Tequila by J. Alan NelsonI Miss You, I Love You by Skylar CampDaytime Fireworks by Matthew MersonFrancis The Shards by Michael Dean Clark The Pushcart Prize honors the best poetry/fiction in small presses … Continue reading 2023 Pushcart Prize Nominees
my asshole, and why I keep checking its horoscope why my secret identity is a factory-reject breast pump why I only feel close to my ancestors when I eat an apple on a church stoop the grave I’m digging with a golden shovel, cursing the bend of soft metal why I keep getting blackout … Continue reading My Therapist Found My Poems and Now She Has Questions About
THE KID'S THERE by the door, leaning against the brick wall under the blinking Budweiser sign. Gets deposited there almost every night by his old man. I’m half-drunk. It’s like I never left. Everything’s different. Everything’s the same? Sounded better when Sheri said it in French. I’m not the same guy is what I’m trying … Continue reading A Good Day
I DON'T KNOW HOW to start this, to write it all down, other than to say none of it was planned or simple. Neither was what happened. Nothing ever is. And yet, all the work, my collection of years collecting the raw material and nights lost to the city in search of the perfect spot, … Continue reading Francis The Shards