pioneertown.

Kara Dorris: yet I forget how to spell vulnerability even as I practice cutting shame’s dotted line, pry open a chest, spread ribs until moisture spills from one heart’s rag & bone silo to another’s

John Zedolik: give him 20/20 vision, maybe turn them toward himself and even x-ray in, where I’m sure the drinks stack up, and he can count: one, two, three, and four—or he can just ask me since I poured them all for him

Martha Ryan: Melodrama, my sick muse, forced by inaptitude. My friend replies in a language I never learned, better than sinking into someone’s arms deceived by understanding:

Matt Zambito: and waking hungover and horny in a fenced field full of donkeys in New Mexico. Old Mexico sounds like a kind of phantom nostalgia I feel about some dead bards

Esther Sadoff: Everything falls through my fingers, only dampness left, like cheeks after tears. I've thought so much of nothingness that I regret leaving it, the cup that could hold dirt and grow anything,

Robert Cowan: I could high-tail it out when I didn’t feel like it and curl up in her lap when I felt the trust. This sensitivity is crucial to maintaining balance. Like landing on your feet.