“I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time.” — From St. Patrick’s Confessio

Okay, you’ve done your penance. Now go drain a Guinness.

by Brian Allen Carr

We have a broken rib. This is the most unfortunate of wounds. Doctors can do nothing for you. Luckily there’s alcohol. Thankfully there is YouTube. We are at our most powerful while watching strangers get wounded.

Check out this sucker.

(more…)

1:45 am

The homicide detective builds on logic; no logic for this couple exists. He can’t understand drunks & guns, the complication of marriage. He shakes his head, another day, another body bag. Grass clippings cling to his pants, glass litters the ground; he can’t tell dew from crime, blood from dew, brain matter from gravel. That changes in the morning. It can wait.

12:30 am

She finally fell asleep at midnight, exhausted by compromises & promises, hands empty, her father’s denial, her mother’s caution, the demands of hearts & lovers.

So, marry me. Marry me now.  His voice,
she hears his voice in waking hours. Between—
she dreams of a white gown bleached un-seamed
& draining lace, the fitted corset moist.
She hears discharge, a gun, shuttered gasp,
another quake, another trap. Her wrists
pressed to glass, and still she resists.
She expects soldiers, blacken trenchcoats collapsed
but sees her lover. Her window crashes glass.
The night stops, the stars spell Marry—
“I’m shot,” she cries & feels nothing, revives
to sterile terrain, doctors, unengaged.
Bullet-brain-pan, squish, a nurse claims.
The fluorescents bright. Why now? She can’t ask.

12:30 pm

He drove to her house carefully, with love in the dark night, stopping at lights & signs, holding the ring tight against the steering wheel, the gun against his thigh, rehearsing his vows.

Marry, marry, marry me— Why should we wait? Why do you ignore me? Gravel, pebbles, messages wrapped, nothing. Mariachis, chocolates, tulips, Twizzlers, Netflix, a house in the suburbs, & still, I can’t convince you. You wear my ring, we need nothing else. Consent? We are consenting. Think Elvis: Two days, three nights; Las Vegas for 69 dollars a day. I only wanted your attention. The gun seemed like the logical solution; smooth, metal convincing.  It certainly caught your attention; awakened in bed, a raid, a sniper, an intruder. No, just your lover shooting the sky. Until your bedroom window crashed. You screamed, “I’m shot” & fell silent. Below, grass clippings mimicked stars, the night was too bright to look up. Bullet to the brain-pan, squish.

6:30 am

The detective, back at light, thinks it could be even sadder than in the dark. Among the glass & grass a ring lies empty, sonnets scattered across the block.

__________________________________

In 2009 Kara Dorris graduated from New Mexico State University with an MFA in poetry.  Her poetry has appeared in The Tusculum Review, Stirring, ListenLight, Not Just Air, Wicked Alice, Prick of the Spindle, Parcel, Skidrow Penthouse, and others literary journals.

Big Dipper rises
over the Polygon, lights
of Kurchatov hazing in the distance
like the shadow of a bomb.  The arms
of the woman glisten as she washes
her daughter in the sink, cupping
her face with one hand, turning
the blank eyes, the body bent
like a W, toward the candlelight.
Later, she will feed her from a porcelain
mug, the close-shaved
head tipped back in her arms.
Later, she will blame herself
for the fallout in her womb.  Outside
in the sunlight, the girl’s eyes
are so brown they could be red.
She cannot feel the frost
in the air.  She cannot feel
her mother.  The bells of the church
clank, pulled by ropes
in a dead woman’s hand.
Across the river bridge,
a man with a melted face
plays the piano, plays
opera, smokes a cigarette
in the snow. In a house near
the old airport, a father
is bathing his man-son before
work. And a nurse rocks
a blind baby while another
is lifted toward the window,
toward the glaring light.

_______________________________________

Alyse Knorr is an alum of Elon University and is currently pursuing her MFA at George Mason University, where she also serve as a faculty member in the English department. Her work has been published in the Albion Review, the North Central Review, Colonnades, Vision Magazine, and more than a dozen newspapers across the country.

(i)

The tinderbox is a blue Buick. I didn’t mean to leave
the baby in the car. The temperature rose and swallowed the whole
thermometer. The authorities said
she couldn’t be buried with the coffin lid off. Who was I to ask this thing?

(ii)

Reason is a red thread splitting like a hair; it won’t hold up for long.
New things are always in the works. Like those
self-stick postage stamps, and dolls that piss and burp.

(iii)

I walked all the way to the river once,
but didn’t have the nerve to jump.
That particular Sunday, the murky smell of a dead turtle
made me cry on the bank. I sat in shit-colored
mud and dug flesh from shell
to keep ants from eating it.

(iv)

In third grade, a girl came to school every day
wearing plastic teeth. We held her down in the bathroom
because we wanted to see what was hiding inside her mouth.
Behind plastic teeth were black holes and some kind
of forced sound that made me think of hinges.
A locked car door and my red-fisted baby inside, gasping.

(v)

I meant to thank you for showing me
the pictures inside your wallet. Listen, Mister,
would it be all right, just for one night,
if I slept with your thumb in my mouth?

____________________________________

Jayne Pupek is the author of the novel, “Tomato Girl” (Algonquin Books, 2008) and a book of poems titled “Forms of Intercession” (Mayapple Press, 2008). Her second poetry collection, “The Livelihood of Crows,” is forthcoming from Mayapple Press later this year. Her writing has appeared in numerous literary journals. In addition to her own writing, Jayne freelances as a ghostwriter, editor and mentor. A Virginia native, Jayne has spent most of her professional life working in the field of mental health.