Terrance Hayes - { Black Confederate Ghost Story }
Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick - { Worst of It }
Jay Sefton - { I’ll Have a White Zinfandel }
Jeff Boyle - { Apostrophe }{ The Thing Is }{ Domesticity }{ Constantly Approaching Zero }
Reesa Grushka - { Horses }{ Prayer }{ Constellations }
Liz Howort - { Words on Which I Float }
Bernadette McComish - { The Gospel of Donna }
Sarah Heller - { Leaving Egypt }{ Ars Novelica }{ Company }
Jeff Friedman - { Willhem of Hands }{ Power Point }{ Pillar of Salt }{ Home Magic }
Syreeta McFadden - { Wingman }
David Ebenbach - { First Flowers }{ The Four Seasons Club }
Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick - { What Man Made }{ Francine Hates Antique Stores for Their Bowls of Lemons }{ How a Home is Made }
Ronda Muir - { Names from History }
John Findura - { Adrienne, I Heard You Were Trapped }{ My Fascination With Mercedes }{ Recharging the Batteries }
Michelle Campagna - { Salt }{ History of an American Face }{ Firebird }{ Satellite }
What Man Made by Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick |
They took their father’s tractor, the boys,
one much older, the other, a child with teeth
still crooked, coming in. The swallows landed
on the older boy’s hands. He tied them together
last night while the woman in the bathroom drank
the old man’s entire cabinet, even the mixers, then
played Stormy Monday on the man’s vinyl, which,
once the boys scratched so the man hit them “two
ways to Wednesday” until the light in the kitchen
window went purple. Such beautiful ways to see
one view. It was October so the white was high
in its cotton home. Once a shed, the lean-to piled
with bones, tools rusted over and the tractor, glinting
in the slats, growling, rolled. The older boy willed
spikes in the old man’s shins. All spikes, to irrigate
anger. When the tractor got to the main road, release, then
laughter, as if a snow-cone stand appeared suddenly, cows
stalled as the boys danced, first two tires, then four, then
crying as it left the earth, punching each other into soil.