7.07 / July 2012
Four Poems from Rising Poets
Badgerdog, a literary arts non-profit in Austin, believes in creating long-term, creatively-engaged communities through the transformative powers of reading and writing. Under this big tent, we publish American Short Fiction, and we hire writers as teaching-artists to run creative writing workshops for kids and senior citizens. Jess Stoner, the Education [...]
On Our Rwandan Refugees: A Memory
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Zimbabwe, 1994
You have to remember:
sometimes a man does walk
out of the sunset, at first
staining the dark lily fabric,
then growing and becoming
a noise, a need, but it’s not
until you see one arm clearly
the red eyes, the paper skin,
not until you hear him ask
if you have any water [...]
Two Poems
The Mecosta Burnout
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The sixty-seven Falcon, black as a court date suit,
shudders on the blacktop as mohawked kids pluck grubbies
from the puddled run-off that washed away
the curled skins of tire-treads.
The driver cracks her suicide-door like a Tall Boy.
The hand she raises can’t close from the busted jaw
she [...]
Three Poems
THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY CHILDREN
for Oliver
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I could smell the sea salt, when they brought me to the ship, and my mother’s perfume, and underneath that, more salt. She led me down holding my hand, gave me to the captain who would take us all to our [...]
Uuo
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Presented as a PDF in order to preserve the author’s intended formatting.
Three Poems
Amber
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She’d been looking everywhere, then Lisa,
an apparition in the hallway, and him
two seconds later, the smell.
She knew just what question to ask-
Lisa in the passenger seat, untied shoelaces
bouncing with each road bump- Where were you
and grandpa?
They tore her apart on the stand-
Look, I know I’ve been a [...]
Maria in Drag
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Chica had no visitors, but once received a Bible in a brown box. Color coded text, red was where Jesus came in. She spoke His lines aloud as we ate our nails. Jesus liked the lame girls. The dark girls, field hands and whores. So Chica went [...]
Roofers
Men are ripping off shingles across the street,
layer after blue, scratchy layer,
wrenching nails and flinging everything down.
The woman who lived there smashed her hip,
and as she was wheeled away-she rolled her eyes
when they told her she’d be home in a week.
She died alone miles from here.
In a new [...]
Rawness of Remembering
My biological father’s name is Nyles Rudean Vinzant. This according the 1986 adoption papers I laid my hands on the summer after my freshman year of college. I was in my family’s filing cabinet on the hunt for my social security card, a prerequisite for summer employment. I can still [...]
Six Poems
If I Leave You Then Maybe I Won’t Have to Miss You So Much
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Lately I keep things
just to throw them away: practice,
practice. What I mean is, I’ve had enough
longing, enough of nothing
ever being enough. Look how the earth
shrugs its mountainous shoulders, how the cows don’t blink
unless there’s [...]
We’re All Guys Here
The doorbell rang while Ron was masturbating.
He closed his eyes tight. Tried to hold the image of Lori bent over the arm of the couch. No use. It was gone. Ron sighed, then levered the recliner down. Tied on the terry-cloth robe Lori had given him. He kicked aside an [...]
Want Ad Blues
Model Upside Down on the Stairs
“A woman’s beauty can be her damnation,†her mother said. One guy told her he’d never seen an orifice he didn’t like. Sure thing. But you’ve got to know something about tenderness. He just poked. She likes eyes on her, though, so she finds herself in the occasional awkward pose. [...]
Gods
I can make a god
inside me
Look how I make
him
pit, walnut shell, brain
I can make him
in my stomach
the usual way
or better
in my lungs
My body is a
god factory
where I produce
what is never given to me
I carve out
the man I need
for worship
I can make a god inside me
put a paint knife in [...]
Some Animal Have Funerals
April started stealing ashes during her brother’s first week at the crematorium, where she had to pick him up every day and drive him home. His car had been impounded and his license revoked. The urns were just there, waiting to be picked up: a whole person, in a decorative [...]
Two Poems
Eddie
The way an afternoon feels desperate. The way they we are all desperate-and high trying to fill a hole or follow the black tangled roots into the Midwestern mud. When Eddie Ray’s backyard dog-off its chain tried to bite another dog. When he caught the squirrel [...]
Surrogate Needs
When Mindy watches Carter’s house through binoculars at night, his curtains are always closed. He doesn’t linger in front of backlit windows, and she suspects he suspects someone outside is spying. Tonight, Mindy parks two houses down on the opposite side of the road. The Driscolls’ porch light is out. [...]