The End...

...for now, I'm afraid.

Will keep this page up as long as Facebook'll have me.

Thanks so much to all the contributors.

Happy holidays!

Robert

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"Passion"
by Caili Wilk

My two-year-old son crushed
his cherished Mac the truck
box today. He loved that box
with such vigor, such uncontrollable
passion, he all but annihilated it.
Mommy, unsquash it--
his eyes naive and expectant.
I did my best, but the sides
were bashed in, and besides,
it can't stand alone anymore.
Tomorrow when I throw it away,
my son will cry, my box, my box,
I want my box. I will lament
with him--for him, for me.

The toy truck is shiny still,
standing with a permanent
smirk. We never learn.

Caili Wilk is a student and hopes to graduate one day, though probably not in May. She was born and raised in the UK, but after almost 13 years in California, sometimes she is mistaken for an Australian.

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"Home From the War"
by Howie Good

for Mikey O.

They said the Army would be good for you
supply the discipline you needed

and when you came back at 21
with a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart

there was a ceremony at the high school
with speeches and a color guard

and they renamed a park after you
and planted a tree but you didn't know

how could you at the top of the hill
under a simple stone in the town cemetery

Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Death of the Frog Prince (2004) and Heartland (2007), both from FootHills Publishing. He was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is the featured poet in the Autumn 2007 issue of The Grand Rapids Literary Review. This poem originally appeared in New Verse News.

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"Believe Me"
by Patricia Kennelly

peaches taste better
if they're stolen
from your neighbor's tree
back towards the alley
where the chain-link fence
is broken

on a new moon night
find where black squirrels
have left half-gnawed,
half-ripe ones like
hansel-gretel crumbs

the limb hangs heavy
with the fuzzy globes
you push aside
the glossy leaves
to find one

my advice
eat it
in your garden

Patricia Kennelly is a freelance writer/editor and poet who currently lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Her work has appeared most recently in Artella, The Pointed Circle, Alembic and the Irish American Post. When she's not writing, editing or stealing peaches, she's nagging people about "writing daily" at her blog http://writingnag.blogspot.com.

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"After a drink at the Tavern"
by Caili Wilk

Labor Day again, and my sister
gave birth, while I was walking

down the pier hand in hand thinking,
we must, at least, look like lovers.

I even believed it myself as we
kissed and thought we should be.

Caili Wilk is a student and hopes to graduate one day, though probably not in May. She was born and raised in the UK, but after almost 13 years in California, sometimes she is mistaken for an Australian.

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"Easter"
by Linda Benninghoff

You blew bubbles
From a bubble kit
In the bookstore restaurant
Saying, I don't care if they kick me out.
I think you are ushering in the spring
Although there are fine lines in your face
And I don't always believe in your magic.

All winter,
You went from crowded diner to diner
Where you laughed and talked
With strangers.
You watched TV
(British comedies, movies, Jeopardy)
In a rented room;
We didn't get together 'til Easter.

Like someone
Whose wonderment is dying,
You sought it again
In a field where you fed horses.
The roan mare nuzzled you,
And the Apoloosa swished her tail.

Once at dusk, you took your car
Through scraggly woods
To the yet-unmarked grave
Of your husband
Wanting magic again.

Linda Benninghoff has published in about 60 magazines, both online and in print. She's published two chapbooks, Departures and The Street Where I Was a Child. Linda translated The Seafarer from Anglo-Saxon; the translation appears at http://www.electrato.com. She won the Poetry Superhighway contest last year and was a finalist this year.

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"The Detonation of Rabbits"
by Ray Succre

Before the clickhead end, they loped
across a dry field, animates consorting
stones, in the scrubbery blurred
like bronchioles flared, each a panicked,
heaving lung atop the flats.

The ground blared, hoarse, dry and scabbed,
smothering curtain breezes trapped down
and outstretched on dairy land, running
between two meaty ears on jigsaw hindlegs...

That run--stamping a dustwake pounded
to clouds in blood. The eyes floated on it.
A man's blast struck the open air like a maul.
Its resonance startled clothing.
A rabbit tumbled.

Two boys and a man looking down.
"I'm sorry." Clouds and dirt.
"It's in pain." Baking hair.
"I can't kill it." A lip curved sick
atop one hand's hot soda, near other hand
flexing an extension of reason, the hole
of the rifle's life.

Then trigger, blunt comma drawn in,
was the sensation of copper detonation,
and a shot popping in a dustbloom
that wouldn't settle for a child excuse.
"Good job." To a twitch.

The air saw it,
the father and brother presented it,
and I sat cold as the dead rabbit
faded, having leaped off the world
with a boy.

Ray Succre currently lives on the southern Oregon coast with his wife and baby son. He has been published in Aesthetica, Laika and Rock Salt Plum, as well as in numerous others across as many countries. He tries hard.