Free of Grime by Julia Robitaille

It lingers in the air 
for four – no, 
eight hours afterward, and on surfaces it can 
exist for days, depending on the surface, of course - 
4 hours on copper, 3 days on plastic, 4 on wood, 5 on metal,  
days on glass, and on paper it can vary from minutes to hours to days - 
Food, water, fabric, shoes, 
Counters, tables, handles, toilets, all - 
We must  
Keep Surfaces Clean 

Disinfect all surfaces after touching 
Disinfect hands and avoid 
touching 
Of your face and others 
whenever possible 
happy birthday your hands with soap and water 
and wipe down the souls of your shoes  
Hinder all the ways,  
All the ways 
Through which the little most conspicuous things, they 
can permeate your white body 

after contact with the infected 
or suspected infected 
(for safety assume they’re all infected) 
Drink the bleach! 

dizzying long-term effects 
include but are not limited to 
difficulty breathing
fear, anxiety, isolation from ones we loved 
i cant breathe -  

But never mix ammonia with household cleanser 
Shoot up! lyse ‘em -ol 
Bolster your defenses 
With quickie kleening products 
& heroes like Mr. Clean, 
Ajax, Palmolive 
A tub of bleach, 
O, tub of truth, 
Twisted by knaves 
you must 
clean, to be safe - to be sane, like 
bleach in-your-veins and 
Windex-on-your-windowpane sane  
To escape being slain 
by your inner fears, 
a hostage to your microscopic tears 

Of this - this self-assembling body 
Of not-body, 
Half-living, Half-alive, never dead but never alive because 
It was never live 
Production of massive macrophage cytokinetic storm 
Capable of mass infection 
hidden in the crevices 
in shadows 
of your mind 

We incarcerate the blind, disseminate the wicked 
to stop the spread 
Stop the spread and flatten the soul, 
a foul odor - 
Pests for pesticide 
Insects for insecticide 
Abomination; it's a nation of vaccination, chloroquine - 
Genocide 

When did
The capacity
To breathe and to remember
Become objects of the state 

But we can't forget 
What was never ours 
No matter how hard you try 
It’s a shame you can't 
Sanitize the past with UV light 

 


Hobbes Walks Webster Ave by Teddy Press

Considering the fact that I no longer exist as a basement rat
(and can watch the snow fall), 
I wonder what in the world led
these barely-functioning teens
to declare themselves Leviathans.
I cannot rationalize their marionette strings, 
but maybe Clarke can?
It’s sensational!--
The absolute absurdity at which
I find myself shaking my head 
and furrowing my brow and wondering, 
when did _god die and
who let these tipsy sleep-deprived
Polo boys replace _him?

I flip my cap backwards
and swagger along the sidewalk
and wonder if it’s for the best;
I mean that I simply built myself
a shoddy ladder of friends
and tried to climb up it!
The onlookers GASPED in horror
as they realized my steel-spiked cleats 
had dug into my besties’ eyes 
and imprinted my Instagram handle 
on their retinas. 
Oh look, the Leviathan I have become.

So I stare into my silly little iPhone camera
and pretend that I haven’t just subjected myself
to three weeks of trauma 
in a sad last ditch attempt to network with
the male gaze.

Leaving Yourself Behind by Kieran Householder

Today I decided where we were.
I was a bleached mattress in the street by Domino’s Pizza.
Secretly I was as dirty as the trampled snow. 

I was invited to sail a ship,
but I was ensnared in academia.
Idiocy
is an ideal we sometimes cannot approach.

I became a tree in New England,
sturdy and full of sap.
Every forty degrees I collected myself,
made syrup.

I am this dusty blue being,
a windowless log cabin.
I come from lumberjacks in Sweden.

I swear I am the something beneath a thing,
the life beneath some pulse.


War in Dallas (if Dallas is Real) by Carter Welch

Well, I heard about the camels yesterday. 
The left pundits told me they were of an irredeemable tribe,
of derailed danger. They say—
let your fear evaporate you. Subscribe 
to our maxim of unbridled terror.  

Then the right pundits collared the airwaves—
the camels are a scapegoat. Trojan horses. 
Look, you don’t need to be saved.
C’mon, this should not derail you from your course.
Actually, confront the threat which does not exist!

So many of them went to Dallas in long caravans knifing
Oklahoma. 
(that’s where they said the camels were, Dallas)
And they stood there without protection. Chests puffed,
Arms sunburnt. 

Many of us—but some of them—sequestered in houses, 
millions of fathoms from Dallas. 
The camels were coming, the voices of fifty-year old women
warned me alongside the river. 
But no verified vestige sprung from the webs. 
Of course, I do not travel toward damage. So why would they drift to Dallas?
Truth coronates the brave, in the end, or so the right
pundits asserted. 
The left pundits whispered,
truth favored the silent. 
I will not engage in battles regarding truth. 

The televisions radiated blood. Dallas was red and I-35
defecated itself tan and brown and sore with proverbs 
of 
bestow caution unto those who you value most. 
Social media pages said 
THERE IS NO BLOOD IN DALLAS
DALLAS: SAFE. STRONG. HOLY. 
My cousin in Fort Worth just wasn’t quite sure. 

And rattling on the newspaper tomorrow, 
HORRIFIC CARNAGE IN TEXAS
Camels terrorize protestors and deniers
But mostly, resonating on the streets of Anywhere Else, United States, 
fear
Isn’t it terrible? says the sixty-year old woman. 
I counter.
We must never allow the avoidable to deliver us sorrow.