NEW YEARS RESOLUTION
by Leslie J. Anderson

This year the space ships will come,
and I resolve that I will be the first to walk into danger.
I will not scream at the cosmic dinner plates – No!
I will stand as the door opens like a silver tongue
and the aliens will walk out like frightened deer,
and reach out to me, a strange creature,
because I was the first to touch them, though my hands were shaking.
And in biographies and history books there will be nothing
about learning to cook, or vacuuming, or jogging every other Tuesday.

 

 

NATHALIE
by Kelsey Kat

Nathalie lives with the orcas, the sharks, the seals, and all the little fishes. She
holds her breath while lying in bed and pushes her face into her pillow, hard. This is
how she imagines gills feeling, like a dense filter that the air needs to be forcefully
sucked through, not simply inhaled. Twirling in the water, she feels flannel tentacles
wrap around her legs and hears the steady pulse of the ocean’s heart in her ears. If I
whisper, will the whales hear me? she wonders. She pulls herself closer to her blue
pillowcase, the one with the stain from the time she dove too hard and gave herself a
nosebleed. Her eyes dart around in their sockets, checking the backs of her eyelids
for predators. Can the sharks still smell the blood?

 

 

PSIU!
by Rachel Morgenstern-Clarren
[audio:http://www.hootreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/MorgensternClarren_Rachel_Psiu.mp3]

When men want your
……….green-eyed attention
they hiss: sonorous lariats.

Beleza means beautiful
……….but it is gostosa, deliciosa
they murmur in your ear.

Like a metronome,
……….their catcalls set
your slim hips ticking.

 

—

 

Leslie J. Anderson was raised riding horses, and sometimes falling off of them. She received an MA in Writing from Ohio University, then switched back to writing fantasy and science fiction, and drawing comics.

Kelsey Kat is an elementary teacher from central Alberta, who writes poetry and short stories in her spare time.

Rachel Morgenstern-Clarren’s recent work appears or is forthcoming in Narrative, Guernica, and The Common. She is an MFA candidate in poetry and literary translation at Columbia University, and the blog editor for Words without Borders.