We reunite at a cocktail bar. I’m late – I was dealing with a new, unwelcome flap of fat billowing over my belt (hide it or don’t? I still do not know the answer!) – and since my hair is falling out, I’ve voted to conceal it with a peaked cap. Heath is artsy, and might like this sort of thing. The bar is empty, save for a lone cellist, and I see him straightaway. He’s seated in the back, boots akimbo, dark eyes scanning the pages of a withered Woolf novel.

my father opens up his body

into a morgue      says it's the

safest way to unmake a faulty

body & name it an overpopu-

lated community of silence—

cold penance

You possess a body trained and disciplined through the multitude of hours of the multitude of days of the years and years and years in which you exercised and practiced to develop your special, oh-so-special, oh-so-wondrous fusion of athletic power and artistic grace.

You stand on skates as gracefully and naturally as if they grew out of your feet as bone and flesh made of metal and leather. Moving across a plain of thick ice you are vibrantly alive, your strength and confidence pulsating in every cell.

But there’s too much pain in this world I live

And too many friends have died

Some from drug overdoses

Some from suicides

Because when you’re born poor in America

It’s like being born into a ditch

The ditch just keeps getting deeper and deeper

And it never seems to quit

And when you’re living poor in America

Your life is already such a bitch

But then they gotta go milk you for all your money

To offset their tax cuts for the rich

Eric heads north.  He passes one block, then another, wishing that he could be at least wandering with his two buddies, but they were vacationing with their families, leaving Eric pretty much disconnected from any peer sustenance.   More troubling thoughts begin to race through his mind, thoughts from the last two girls he interacted with earlier during summer vacation, which isn’t turning out the way he hoped it would.

I think we should just be friends, Eric.  I want to date other guys. You’re nice and all, but—

it’s not the vellum stretched

over thirsty bone     it’s not the large liquid

liquid eyes that want filling

like two pits         it’s not the shaved ribs

for counting

“I saw the X on the calendar,” She whispered. “Daddy really loved you, Toby. I want you to know that.”

“What did Daddy die of,” I asked.

“He was in a car accident. The car hit a tree in a rainstorm. The casket was closed.”

“Really?”

“You keep forgetting. You’ll ask me again.”

My name is Alice. My family called me Crazy Lady for decades. It was supposed to be funny, but the words cut me like razor blades. After my diagnosis, I asked them to stop.

You see, I contain a multitude—others. I usually don’t know these parts of myself that surfaced to take away pain or power me through danger and abuse. I have always had them talking to me, calling my name, yelling, criticizing, or cheering; I assumed everybody did.

Read on to enjoy three incredible poems from Melissa Coffey!

“I flew high above the audience in a big arena and performed a trick called the double

cutaway to the catcher’. Most of us have been to seminars and corporate meetings

where, as an ice breaker, they ask you to tell everyone something they’d never guess

about you. That is my standard answer. No one else can top it, and often they don’t

believe it. Afterall, now I walk with a cane due to my Multiple Sclerosis. I move like a

woman thirty years older. In no way do I resemble someone who was once a flying

acrobat. Now to how it all began.

“I’m in the circus now. Maybe when you get to be my age, you can be too,” Dottie

boasted. “It takes a lot of practice.”

I was six years old when my cousin told me that. I wanted to be in the circus too!! I

quickly went to ask my mom. I was scared she would say no, but I looked up to Dottie.

Mom sat me down and explained that we lived in a circus town. She told me the

history of the circus in Peru.

Turns out I've got this

condition called HSD

(sounds like the name

of a construction firm)

So I am forced to consider

that this is not my fault

If I can get through the next hour and a half, then I can get through tonight.

Maybe.

I noticed Mr. Grayson hovering around the front desk and rolled up beside him with the snack cart.  I remembered him from the last time I worked on the fifth floor, so I didn’t expect him to sit down and eat a snack.  He would probably take a glass of juice then go pace the hallways like last time.

8:15 AM. She wakes up and gets ready for the day.

Annie dreams in shades of vivid colours: fiery and passionate reds, calm and tranquil blues, and sharp and envious greens. Her palette and appreciation for these colours have grown over the years. It disappoints her when she wakes up to darkness and shades of grey. Annie wiggles her fingers and stubs to make sure that she is not still dreaming. The ends of her toes are ghosts that still haunt her. They burn and sting with every movement. She sighs heavily and decides that yes, she is, in fact, awake. She pulls her leg up to her chest to rub the nubs to remind her body of the missing pieces.

“Hey! What’s the matter with ya?” Thomas asked. Elijah looked up at him and shook his head. He looked his son up and down but didn’t notice anything unusual. Elijah had just left to go play in the woods behind their house, a normal thing he did most evenings if it wasn’t too cold. There were no scuff marks on his jacket or overalls and while he was a little slow learning to speak, he was now eight years old and was talking just fine before he left. Thomas held his face between his two hands and looked into his eyes.

I long to catch a moment—

an earthy, fleshy slice of life

and hug it hard

until its essence bursts and bathes me.

But my mind is always whirring—

skipping ahead to anticipated doom,

or slamming sharply into Rewind

to retrieve a long-passed conversation

I suddenly need to dissect.