Boundaries

PERIMETER B
​Julie Doxsee

It takes 3 weeks to eat the poem. Three weeks of long mornings and coffee hidden under the table where banshees play jacks for big money. Nobody knows. The act.

Twilit foliage dries as vines die in a ravine. A girl gathers rocks and piles them on her belly.

A past rips in half, one side of itself wounded at the split, umbilical eyes still holding. As the afternoon passes it shrinks to a speck in the clouds.

When eyes meet they don't touch. The eye never ages distance. Anyone could be gazing directly at you from the stratosphere. Now. Anyone is gone.

from Julie Doxsee's Undersleep
recommended by Anis Mojgani

BOUNDARIES
Adam Stone

There is no passion left I do not devour anything but time Slabs of it dripping over my bed Staining the sheets in the least erotic fashion

I broke up with my last ex when i realized he spent more time talking to my voicemail than me He kept tagging me in photos of locked doors and barred windows

My mother sent a saint bernard to my place of employment Around his neck was a spikeless collar and a barrel full of returned mail The post office assumes that since i don't respond anymore that i no longer wish to hear from the strangers who care about me

I have always been more middle fingers than tears More sigh than silence I don't use shoulders as tissues I am more likely to assist a samaritan I believe bridges are for burning not leaping