July 2018

My Dearest Loves. Dear Doves. Things are, have been, undone at the border. Like raspberries plucked from thorned branches in a bright backyard kept taught by a beautiful hive of undocumented Mexicans, the children are, have been, plucked from their parents. Pluck being too easy a verb.

I'll let you mow my lawn, I'll pick berries from the bush, I'll love you. But what (else) can I do to keep you safe? I am (almost) at a loss. Yet never quite.

I want to say: we are so fucked. But those words in my mouth are all wrong. We? I'm here by the raspberry bushes, a pressed cardboard carton in one hand, sweet pulp and fruit flies and the sun setting soon. A feast, a fuck, a fist in the other.

Send us something. Anything. We're here.

2 - Austin Davis

Dear Betsy DeVos,

If ambition and knowledge

are two autumn leaves

waving from the same branch,

a brother and sister

each holding an end

of the same jump rope,

our public school system

is the rotten apple hanging

from the next tree over,

that weird cousin

with the minor drug addiction

who doesn’t get invited

to the family reunions anymore.

Austin Davis is a poet, writer, and spoken word artist from Mesa, Arizona. Austin's poetry has been widely published in literary journals and magazines, both in print and online. Most recently, Austin's work can be found in Pif Magazine, Ink in Thirds, Folded Word, The Poetry Shed, In Between Hangovers, One Sentence Poems, and Tuck Magazine. Austin’s first chapbook, "The Moon and Her Ocean," was published in 2017 by Fowlpox Press. "Cloudy Days, Still Nights,” Austin’s first full length book of poetry, was published in May, 2018 from Moran Press.

1 - Joseph D. Reich

A Different Theory Of Relativity

I hear Trump is handing out pardons now

like some game show where you take the

money and run or try to guess what’s behind

the curtain or one of those drive-thru cathedrals

where on the screen they’ll tell you if you’ve been

absolved of your sins with a couple token Hail Marys

for when you get home; also helps I guess for a little

nepotism and to be friends with Kim Kardashian because

of all her meetings with his son-in-law Jared (who of course

plans on bringing peace to The Middle East now getting

nailed for all these crooked real estate dealings) and all

her ideas for prison reform; just heard he pardoned

this 63 year old mom doing a lifetime bid for selling

coke and hear the next one on his list is poor Martha

Stewart. I’m thinking of just showing up due to all

my guilt and to confess about that girl in Brooklyn

who used to be a ballerina and lived in the apartment

right above me and heard she liked me and once

brought homemade rum balls to my door and

like some moron I just stood there and didn’t

know how to act and still regret and feel remorse

for my lack of action. It’s shit like that that always

haunts me and have a history of being way too tough

on myself yet thinking of just showing up to 1600 Penn

sylvania Avenue if in fact they’re giving out pardons

as might help to relieve just a bit my guilty conscious.

Joseph Reich is a social worker who lives with his wife and

thirteen year old son in the high-up mountains of Vermont.

He has been published in a wide variety of eclectic literary journals both here and abroad, been nominated seven times for The Pushcart Prize, and his books in poetry and cultural studies include, "If I Told You To Jump Off The Brooklyn Bridge" (Flutter Press) "A Different Sort Of Distance" (Skive Magazine Press) "Pain Diary: Working Methadone & The Life

& Times Of The Man Sawed In Half" (Brick Road Poetry Press) "Drugstore Sushi" (Thunderclap Press) "The Derivation Of Cowboys & Indians" (Fomite Press) "The Housing Market: a comfortable place to jump off the end

of the world" (Fomite Press) "The Hole That Runs Through Utopia" (Fomite Press) "Connecting The Dots To Shangrila: A Postmodern Cultural Hx Of America" (Fomite Press) "Taking The Fifth And Running With It: a psychological guide for the hard of hearing and blind" (Broadstone Books) "The Rituals Of Mummification" (Sagging Meniscus

Press) "Magritte's Missing Murals: Insomniac Episodes" (Sagging Meniscus Press) "How To  Order Chinese During A Hostage Crisis: Dialects, Existential Essays, A Play, And Other  Poems" (Hog Press) "The American Book Of The Dead" (Xi Draconis Books) "American Existentialism" (Tuba Press) "From Premonition To Prophecy" (Delinkwent Scholar Press)