Curio
After Josef Albers
by Laurie Rosenblatt
Art by Lena Gorodensky

Broken staghorn coral —
sand-scoured shades caught
in pocks & ridges still damp with salt —
if I take you home then leave you
dry on a chestnut desk,
forgive me.

 
 
 
 

A Life of Russell
by J.R. Hampton

For most of my life I’d become accustomed to responding to the name Russell. For example; “Russell, don’t climb on that!” or “Russell, we need to talk.” Occasionally, “Russell, let’s go for a beer.” But mostly, “Russell, what time do you call this?” and finally “Russell, we need to talk, again.”

For the latter part of my life I’d courteously answer to; “Doctor Mapplethorpe, I think you’ve misplaced your spectacled Lizards again!” or “Doctor Mapplethorpe, Why is your Iguana staring at me like that?”

So you could well imagine how cheated I felt when Saint Peter informed me that due to a clerical error at the hospital where I was born, my name was not in fact Russell Mapplethorpe but Rupert Wapplethorpe.