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In the many pages of the book of love this is only one story.

If life is an open vein, what’s brave about a sleeve-heart, sweetheart?

Corn repeats itself into a haze of tassels and sheaving leaves.

My “lonelymaking.” Also known as my horrible secret, continent-wide.

We did not know at the moment of parting that it was a parting.

She only eats condiments, pickles, slices of sharp cheddar.

You were drowning in the bathtub. Mother was in her room.

In that world I was a fish too eager to enter the nets; here, I’m a river.

I wore the rose pants for weeks without telling anyone.

He had looked on it a thousand times and it never failed to kill him.

My first true love was Underwood, my mother’s typewriter.

When the light failed she listed all the places he might find her.

Craig Bueltel

The portal light, on your face, now, a rose light on a sinking freighter.

A boy knew he wouldn’t see his mother’s face as he rose from the mat.

All I could focus on was if he was going to ask me to date him.

An idea surfacing—a crack of orange teeth. As if a ceiling disappears.

The sense all along has been that there’s some madness in her.

I don’t know you, I only think of you to ignore how unhappy I am.

Let me lie down with you and listen, let me tell you what I know.

Tanya jokes that she comes to the East Coast now only for funerals.

I tried to cheer my brother up by reminding him all clowns die too.

The kissed fingerpad touched wet with wine orbiting.

Even our tenderest buds and shoots endure the late snow.

Chase Twichell

I’m covetous of my worldly neighbor. And he’s not accommodating.

Today the game was to try to catch one of the cats in a pillowcase.

“You mean to fall in love with your wife while I’m gone,” she said.

At the copier, her back to him, running off copies, was Penny Ayler.

What I really meant to say is that I am tired. Beauty can demand so much.