The Literary Magazine of the Osterhout Free Library
Why I Will Enjoy Being a Girl
Saddiq Dzukogi
I’ll be unrestricted to leave
my face inside a mirror
for more than a minute
and nobody grows suspicious
I might like the boy next door
in fact I will love the boy next door
and mother will think it’s ok
what difference does it make now Continue reading “Saddiq Dzukogi, Winter 2017”
The Origin of Trouble
Daniel Edward Moore
Memory can always be something more
if reality doesn’t stand a chance:
a hooker dressed up like a Franciscan nun
feeding bread to the pigeons and poor.
Going there daily in my habit of relief,
dragging the past like a rosary chain
used to pull truckers from ditches of despair,
from beds gone Arctic and wives gone AWOL.
Maybe this is the origin of trouble— Continue reading “Daniel Edward Moore, Winter 2017”
Monday Morning
E. A. Feliu
Head mired in mud,
swaddled in swamp moss.
Atrazine mouth,
throat itching
like a country mouse.
Tongue slithers in sand.
The day assumes the tone
of a metronome.
In fits and starts,
the week lurches forward
like a musket ball
shunting deer heart.
E.A. Feliu is an author, artist and journalist in San Diego, California. He is the author of Postcards from the Tattooed Man’s Chest.
A Dog’s Life
Mary Kavanagh
My dog likes to play games
Like chase, fetch, and eat the slipper.
There’s another game called “If you go out
Without me I’ll trash your room.” Continue reading “Mary Kavanagh, Winter 2017”
Red Fox
Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad
He called the red fox cunning,
in demeaning tone, critical of the
trustless mammal with limb bones,
as if he were not the huntsman
with no fixed abode, shadowing
untrained prey late evening,
leaving carcass abed early morning;
flesh unsuspecting, martyrs long
for the feel of his brilliant fur,
tiers of red, unsteady shades like
manic waves of fire,
veiling the scope of his skin Continue reading “Mehrnoosh Torbatnejad, Winter 2017”
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