KENDRA LEONARD
My Antlers
My antlers
are the most beautiful
of the tribe’s,
coated in skin
softer than
snow on moss.
I give them
so much blood
that my face
is as colorless
as a summer moon.
CINDY HUNTER MORGAN
Replica in Helium & Ether
Late September in a fire tower
above bugling elk, and I’m drinking tea –
steam rising from the cup
as though I’ve brought my own
smoke for the red-tipped maples,
my own liquid for the river.
Some days my body floats free
of itself. It’s not just the soul, but
all of myself detached from itself –
one self hovering like a balloon,
and one reckoning the angle
of the sun. Here above autumn,
the trick is not how to keep
one aloft, but how to coax
a shadow back into the body.
ACE BOGGESS
Because You Went to Med School Doesn’t
Qualify You to Remove Your Kidney
Such a painful exploration
of the cavity you’d carve.
You’re too close to the action.
You know what you intended;
is what was delivered true
to vision—concept or conception?
You went to law school &
end up in jail: how do you deny
the guilt you feel for something
unsettled? You joined the state police,
but will you turn yourself in
for blowing past a stop sign
while your mind went elsewhere?
Read the Detachment Clause
of the contract you signed
with yourself at birth:
you’re the worst judge
of anything concerning you.
You write your histories,
share them with others.
Who recalls dates of every skirmish
in which you lost a part of you?
What do you say
about what you’ve said?
It’s how my mind works; all
remaining notions are your own.
Selected Poems from Issue 3

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