Author: Travis Shosa
-
Belladonna
Clay had a muted way about him, so when the new resident at Lightborne Nursing Home arrived, the staff figured he would take no objection to having a roommate again. They had let the bed opposite Clay lie fallow, cobwebs hanging like irreverent streamers above the space where Fred had breathed his last. Privacy was…
-
Buc-ee’s Drive Thru Car Wash Meditation
O goofy beaver Bat-signal swept across my windshieldO pink and purple suds and gay ass disco lightsO Saturday morning ritual, Shannon’s “Let the Music Play”on repeat and gas station coffee and nobody can see meshimmy my shoulders on the memory of a dancefloorwhere I’m kissing a redhead with scruff on his chinI’m not wearing my…
-
Lines Composed Pulled Over In The Parking Lot After Picking Up Dinner
Fire department outside the wedding venue.All we want is a little blood, & thena little more. I’ve never been greedy enough. Pick up Raising Cane’s then circle back,see the lights still there flashing.What better way to start a new love than with a small disaster? But I’m telling yousomething you already believe:maybe the best way…
-
Buried Treasure
“Land ho!” shouted the slighter of the two ruffians gamboling across the scrubby field behind the 7-11. “We’re already upon the land, matey!” reminded the taller one, squinting down at his friend through his right eye—the one not covered by a black patch. “Ahoy, captain! Ahead be the land … that we be searching for!”…
-
Viv’s Itch
She had an itch so bad, she couldn’t scratch it away. It was the last thing Viv needed. Her kids were a fucking mess. Angie was back on the sauce and Nicky was in the hospital. The last thing she needed was a goddamn itchy leg. Viv got up and made coffee. And while drinking…
-
grasshopper jacket
Put the fries in the bag.Collapse all memories.Recall the grasshopperson the windbreaker.How they scuttledfor first attention.Einstein’s not on the beach anymore.He finally gave up on swimming.Before that he went to Rippers.Had ten beers, ten burgers, and wept. Windswept, the grasshopper operator’snew collision. A dusk of form and function.You spend long hours at the rack,eyeing an…
-
Two Poems by Jeffrey Hecker
Ode to the Desert Warthog Vaporwave music mixes on YouTube number in tens of thousands. I am listening to one titled “you wake up, it’s summer 2006 and life is good again.” You are cocoa brown and look ochre in sunshine. You inhabit Horn of Africa in sex-separated groups called sounders. You can…
-
Three Prose Poems by Dalton Day
The Hawk I was watering our tomato plants when I noticed a hawk in the sky. It was directly above me, as if we were attached by a long, invisible string or cord. It seemed to float, like it had no part in its being there. I thought of those fake mustaches, torn to reveal…
-
Birthday Poem
That Scene in Mulholland Drivewith Rita on the bed sobbing,“I don’t know who I am.” Every breath is a death. A convenient rhymebut that’s not what this isbecause what this isis nothing. Automatically assumingloud neighborsare bad people. Cow tailslike ropedanglingside to side. Spencer Eckart lives on a creek in the Smokies. His debut, BLUE HERON INN,…
-
Three Poems by Simon Ravenscroft
Leafy afternoons Nothing to please the gizzard, so let itrest. I saw your flesh coming & I hid.Fates conspire, no mercy. Steel eagle, lightas a cloud; everyone mixed up & spreadaround. Nicked by the briar, nursed wound, in-finite space, a chestnut. Singularityriven on a wire. When I want to chipaway at you the heaviness of…