MOVEMENT by Brett Hanley

/ / Issue 23


I said, tie me up, tether me to something.
I want to show the universe I’m ok

with being stuck. I craved severe stasis. 
Why did everything have to be so dark,

so intense with me? True stasis is contrary
to our nature, contrary to everything,

she told me, and I rolled my eyes,
and I went to the home improvement store,

and I bought some rope, and I presented it
to her like it was a necklace of real pearls,

the kind that pass the teeth test grittily,
and she took it and bound me to a chair.

I’ve always preferred the Jeff Buckley
cover of our song to the Cohen original. 

It’s partly the way he sighs at the beginning
of it, like someone who woke up in a meadow

from a dream of drowning in the lake, 
the leeches at once swooping doves.   

ISSUE 23

POETRY

SELF PORTRAIT AS MINOTAUR by Kiyoko Reidy

 

AN ORDINARY WEAKNESS by Mikko Harvey

 

TWO POEMS by Xochiquetzal Candelaria

 

DER KLEINE KATECHISMUS by Constance Hansen

 

CALLS TO ORDER by Stephanie Kaylor

 

& LORD KNOWS by Kwame Opoku-Duku

 

TWO SECTIONS FROM “THE BREAKUP” by Mag Gabbert

 

THE STATE BIRD OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE by Matthew Tuckner

 

CENTO FOR LONGING by Rage Hezekiah

 

ARS MORIENDI (FOR JEFF BEZOS & ELON MUSK) by Benjamin Aleshire

 

TWO POEMS by Perry Janes

 

FALL by Joshua Garcia

 

MOVEMENT by Brett Hanley

 

FICTION

THE GAIN by Jennifer Solheim

 

THE APPARENT PATH by Casey Guerin

 

ART

by Anna Beth Lee

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