The Professor Is In by Howie Good

A student who has missed more assignments
than he has completed is standing in the doorway.
“Can I do something for extra credit?” he asks
as he slips off his backpack. I hate that question
and look out the window to avoid showing how much.
The trees have molted. A groundskeeper, a short,
sturdy man with a leaf blower strapped on his back,
is noisily waving the nozzle over the sidewalk
as if it were a magic wand. The student plops down
in the chair reserved for students. There are consequences
I must explain to him, charmed particles coming apart.
But not just yet. He turns his head toward the window
to see what I’m seeing – an incautious conjurer inspiring
the last ragged remnants of summer to get up and dance.



Howie Good is author of Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, winner of the 2015 Press Americana Prize for Poetry.

Is It Too Late to Keep Your Secrets Safe? by Ace Boggess

          - news tagline on CNN

I used to hold onto them like hundreds of pills
with side effects all forms of loneliness.
Secrets stink of empty rooms, dust on bookshelves,
dangling spiders petrified from grief & loss.
I won’t go back into that rundown house,
its blinds pulled, its door safely double-locked.                           
I prefer standing bare-skinned on a stranger’s lawn,
shouting, Look at me! Look! I’m a fool!
to know that even the ugliest truth soothes
like the cigarette after an argument.



Ace Boggess is the author of two books of poetry: The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003). His novel, A Song Without a Melody, is forthcoming from Hyperborea Publishing. His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

Is This the Noise You Hate? by Ace Boggess

          [overheard downtown]  

Babies with their demonic bullhorns
sound like alarm clocks on TV:
old-fashioned pot-banging clatter
or the digital chirp of a robot chick,                                     
I put on headphones, move to another seat                         
before I realize I’m trapped by jackhammers
laughing from four corners of the city.
Rap bass bounces by like tires blowing flat.
A rescue chopper above rasps its menacing purr.
A woman near the ice cream shop
shouts “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!”
as if channeling a British soldier
warning us all of the Nazi advance.
At least the book store has imprisoned quiet.
I go inside, consider heading for the coffee bar
to synthesize my own adventure:
caramel, or maybe crème de menthe.
I love how the barista works the knobs &
metal pitchers, even the steam
despite its heavy snoring. I love
how he says, “Enjoy,” in a whisper
as if there’s a conspiracy between us,
as if a theft of quiet ours to keep.



Ace Boggess is the author of two books of poetry: The Prisoners (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2014) and The Beautiful Girl Whose Wish Was Not Fulfilled (Highwire Press, 2003). His novel, A Song Without a Melody, is forthcoming from Hyperborea Publishing. His writing has appeared in Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, RATTLE, River Styx, North Dakota Quarterly and many other journals. He lives in Charleston, West Virginia.

Flora's Cafe by Tanja Bartel

Famous for its fights and eggs
He used to drive me all the way into the city
during the long bus strike of ’82
Park on Granville Street
when there was still parking
Breakfast before my shift

Flora and her little husband
would argue loudly in Mandarin
over the roar of spitting grease and sizzle
She’d scream over our tightening sausages
Yell down onto the world’s most delicate scrambled eggs
Flip and shove them with her metal spatula
Serve them, still quivering, to us newlyweds



Tanja Bartel is a writer and teacher. Her work has appeared in Right Hand Pointing, Prose Poem Project, Grain, Contemporary Verse 2, NewPoetry.ca, and upcoming in Rusty Toque.