“For some reason I don’t hate him. I hate her, my mother, who is serving Beth tea, and not from her boobs, from the kitchen. So how do you know my husband? Are you colleagues? You can say that, the woman says.”

Excerpts from “Collection/Agency”

Carrie Lorig

“Writing hiding behind red Writing never hiding is an intensity behind black Writing: / some substance only identified by its blossoming Shitting Flowers, do they take us out”

Candy Melt,
Steak Tartare,
&
Pickled Tongue

Inga Lea Schmidt

“ate boilerplates braised in the old brown gravy
our deveined complaints a limp prawn salad rally
ralph jumps french dip fisticuffs how dare you speak
against the grain of a cutting-edge lettuce economy”

Polyphonic Autopsy of a
Woman Who May Not andor Cannot Exist
&
Ansible

Joy Belonger

“I saw you in the Daily Beast etc. a little late, no smoke:
the webpage was chalk-white suitable for reading (excess of 700°C)
the text a clear dark brown-black (300°C–400°C)
my head was sent into an ash-like gray (500°C–600°C)
careening against this brown-yellow yellow yellow [sic] (200°C)”

PRIME OR DIAL
[PRY MORE DEE UH]

Patricia Hartland

“we’d     harvest   your   names
at the organ swap orgy   to play with
your spleen for maw’s   left ventricle
mound of venus     for heel”

from FREAKAPHONE WORLD

Madison McCartha

“listen

mine is a body that starts as a sliver of rain
the field repeats—

now that i’m gone

now that i’m a procession of plump
mud-babies just in”

This Manisfesto is Not for Stovetop use

Claire Bowman

“Let us better smell the stillness that governs this, to better apprehend the unknowable utterances that glide in foaming eloquence from the mouth of the mad, just to make their sound / Dear Chickens, do not be afraid of the cannons, they are sterile and full of clouds. /Do not hesitate to eat the butterfly. / A skull bites.”

Tooth

Michelle G. Lee

“She gives me a shovel ready to share tetanus and has me dig a hole in overripe soil for the tooth to sleep in, and she wets the ground with pungent syrup from a dark bottle. She circles the hole and sprinkles stuff the scent of hanyak. She has me spit a few times in there, too, before she tells me to seal it with dirt.”

L U S T,
f o a m,
&
M DN GHT BLUE

Caroline Cooledge McCraw

” :: I worry about the ethics of writing, the damage of language, the trade-off between accessibility and experimentation :: I am curious about collection and extraction as a poetic act, hierarchies of information and experience, infinitude :: ”

Unraveling

Chelsea Welsh

“I let my hair down and

my head rolled across the floor and

I was not expecting this and”

Macaw & Friends

Isabel Sobral Campos

“when Macaw presented a skull with shinny letters :

h l k p y t

f a w ow mdjsm rkd

ears rested on the side of the skull

hands moved alongside the skull”

The Hair Wall

Lincoln Michel

“It’s the back wall of my bedroom, the one the sunlight doesn’t hit that well. The strands of hair, if they are hair, are very thin and light gray. You wouldn’t believe how soft they feel.”

At the Center of Lament

Angela Peñaredondo

” in their mouths no to the roasted meat i must eat

with my head down no to father’s hands

no to the hands that bound my father’s hands “

Featured Artist: Leah Sophia Dworkin

poemas necesarios y otras mala mañas
necessary poems and other bad habits

by Raquel Salas Rivera

Masthead

Editor-in-cats: Cat Ingrid Leeches

Design & Layout: W. Reilly

Chapbook Layout: SELMS

Editorial Team: J. Taylor Boyd, RBrown, Chase Burke, Jeremy Burke, Julia Coursey, Reilly D. Cox, Lily Davenport, Wendy Dinwiddie, Kira Frank, Mark Galarrita, W. Reilly, SELMS, Jack Saul, Elizabeth Theriot

Icons were created from Leah Sophia Dworkin’s artwork