Kristi Maxwell

TO EXERCISE THIS ASTONISHMENT (3)

How can she dilute the parade of spectators without our complaint and the pause of our supple horns.

Pander is the bear in the zoo of our most likely deceptions; the bear we wave to and feed.

Repentance duty does not obfuscate, doing that refuses duty, do fused to will flounders with the knife by which one is offered up through the off-ing.

With sorrow we waive.

She suffers through hallelujah.

On the backs of heat-slicked horses we shine like no thing or like it is no thing to do so.

An antique lapel holds court for blue ribbons as evidence of application, of applying oneself toward and the inevitable win.

And so a breeze is how we understand a compliment to the coming cool.

Itinerant broom stagnated by such flawless tile, her socks again, our socks against the august notion.

The violence of a bell.

What order would insist we suspend gazelles in our muscles' definitions.

An order we wad with our resistance and toss.

That good and not good are not mutually exclusive.

We share with her each guise of tea.

The collective mouth for serving.



TO EXERCISE THIS ASTONISHMENT (4)

Bright, we answer first and loudly when asked to describe; we have learned what illumination omits from character, we have learned what fools her needles best, and we use our learning as sea foam that hooks the shore for recruits.

She scatters fame over the graves.

A model car bolted to stone and a doll we carve a hand to dole out to eternal.

Sweet abacus hung like antlers amused with flies we count; we count, ridiculous we, we've found a job to account for our existing.

Mais oui a new job.

Interpreter bankrupt of omens.

I have photographed my birthmark from five angles to submit, and I watch to see my submission scrutinized with care.

She bathes in our interest that unplugs fountains.

It is like this daily, and when it is not, desire is finally conjured, and the world's ankle folds and snaps to secure its bed rest.

Wind packs into our flapping shirts.

We dedicate ourselves to each alarm, battle the braying with response.



Kristi Maxwell's poems have most recently appeared or are forthcoming in Forklift, Court Green, How2, the Modern Review, and La Petite Zine. Her book, Realm Sixty-four, is available from Ahsahta Press.

Jeff Downey

from Pasture

The litter rushes bind.   I too was plastered.   Assured that from your sight needs loosening.   Such unearths irrigation.   For early on the tiles there were days regardlessly overfill.   With rowen comes a lining.   Expanses that wouldn’t be much to ply.   Everyone spins topsoil through debt.   Astute campaigns in sentiment.   What matters settle.

You have a look about you that syncs.   Soon or the thick flies in the face.   Lots are now taken electrically.   Without noticing it came into a glad beholding.   The change some trammeled.   Tractor parts lay out in the sun.   Besides the sentence I can be fined.

We have ourselves jostled foray.   The aquifer made rules of fire irons.    To chase tail reminded of the bodies gathered around poles.   If at all points grain.   But when you are moving on you are an overtone.   Shot in capacity.   There’s no need for apologies but go ahead.   Missing is mostly calisthenics.   A staple took of paint.





          Suppose a ripple is the law
          One felt forgone and cottonmouth
          A neighbor vent arisen
          Was an emergency whatever pelts
          Tableaux of plastic whitening
          Let’s not any lasting names
          By use I mean make
          Your contours light out
          The garage said to be off its foundation
          The mildew, marsh sieving to meadow




I knew whistling the vacuum had caught on.   Channels of the see-through sort.   Out of place but nodded at.   A crane lifts from the silt.   Does this amplifying loop.   The same wind that sprained your articulation.   Tugs out a knot.   Aware while handling of reception.   Its shore socked in.

Why fear being chased.   Once science could see from here tethered.   Land for your feat.   Abandon comes and just deserts.   The patent to having blood.   Overhead is a version of dizzying thirst.   All the rage moving on an offer.

The ball drops séance.   What remains relates raising.   Many blank in the basement.   Those grounds to now commit the calendars.   It is a girth resounding.   Winter leaves.   You a dilating adolescence.   Nor was it going to spoil such irises.   I kept meaning to come down with mono.   For after all the grist was the same.   Each post held fast.



Jeff Downey currently works at the University of Nebraska on a grant to digitize historic newspapers. He was an editor for the university’s journal, Laurus, from 2006 to 2007. His poems have appeared or are coming out in Handsome and Octopus #10.