"As All Can Be" art by Edward Lee

by Dana Curtis

“The literary equivalent of a hallucinogen; or:qualities of a hallucinogen reduced to literary essence”
-Steve Erickson, American Stutter

I look for the opium den or
the library because I need
the sweet addled sleep of
the damned, the endlessly
levitated and furious, fearless
on the collapsed couch, words
leaking out the corners
of my mouth. It’s the only way
to look at a sunset,

"Ecumenical" painting by Michael Moreth

by Seth Hagen

I was a cabinetmaker commissioned

To construct the King’s sex chair.

I was a maypole flag wet with June dew

I was half-mouse, half-toad.

Like a dog now paraplegic

I wore a bright coat.

Like a dog now paraplegic

I wheeled on.

A room. A braided rug. Two doors.

One half-open, the other half-closed.

Like a spoonbill splayed

And two owls in a mangled oak.

"Golden Orb Weaver" collage by Tiffany Dugan

by Ashleigh A. Allen

Starting next week, we pray loud
in the direction of memory.
Face forest like a flag, mount the lions.
Your insides hairy and damp as concrete.
Sundays full of worry and worms, socks
hour the clocks full of snow, the doorway
is deliberate. In the garden, flattening
the lawn. Your song comes to me eyes
first, lands on warm lashes, saliva
across a naked face, you look up, ask for sky
but all you get is god,

"Storm Brewing Over the City" painting by Nuala McEvoy

by Laurel Benjamin

wouldn’t order for you because I don’t know your coffee tastes,
but this place has a steel reputation. I heard rumors
about your cloistered ways, how you’ve grabbed a sack and thrown it
dripping on the threshold, creature with fangs and octopus eyes
birthed. Frankly, all I could imagine,
dark roast, though the art photos
plastered on the walls don’t jive with your paintings,
especially the mohawk woman. I expected
your small flames to fan at the table
on time,

Art by Andy Mister

By Patrick Whitfill 

Maybe there’s some great end game
I’m missing out on with this last
century’s revision to the nursery rhyme

about the baby stashed in a tree, but I
always thought, with kids, it’s best to lie
only a little. Point to the window,

say outside, because there’s nothing
about transparency they need to know
When my son noticed his shadow

the first time, we had a choice to make:
confess to what we don’t know,

Art by Bill Wolak

By Michael Montlack

Secretly we all want to strut like you, squeezed
into that laced-up leather catsuit, snaggle-toothed,
bleached hair teased into a cotton candy mess—
how easily you made Mae West pedestrian.

Shouldn’t we all have an Aunt Ida to guide us
in that purr simultaneously girlish and granny:
I worry that you’ll work in an office … The world
of the heterosexual is a sick and boring life.

Virgin Mary, Egg Lady,