bring back words.” From silence to “Clearing Your Throat,” we come to Andrew Riutta‟s poem of the beginning of intimacy. We love how this poem suspends the moment just before a traumatic secret is shared, when two people are still so far apart, but moving ever closer together amidst “a frenzy of moths / circling the streetlight…wingdust creeping toward us / like a ghost.” Rather than suspend time, JP Kelleher deconstructs and rearranges it in “Space-Time Daughter.”. Kelleher removes the speaker-father from each scene with the daughter, effectively rendering him as the outsider when he realizes “She is spread out in places I can‟t ever be.” Aaron Bauer‟s poem “Lot‟s Older Daughter” gives bitter voice to a mythical daughter literally cast out, and who begs “Forgive me my slight / stutter.” Appropriately, “On Burning Countries” follows, July Westhale‟s image-laden poem of a country that “outlawed fire extinguishers / along with rain.” The Gray Area features two poems in prose; “Second-Bodied,” by Lawrence Wray, is told in four parts, the third of which breaks into lines like the “tremble” it describes. Not outcasts, but lost nonetheless: “…at night, we are unhoused and become another animal.” Karen L. George‟s “Finding Home” tells of a woman who actually seeks to become an outsider, who pores over maps and falls asleep as “vowels and consonants of towns whisper in her ear.” For fiction, we have three genre pieces, each a little more surreal than the one before and all a bit more outlaw than outcast. Nate Liederbach‟s “Outlaw” is a western narrative about a seemingly cursed pirate knife and a group of vagabond criminals. One is haunted by the memory of a girl he savagely beat while robbing her caretaker, but later proclaims, “With his gang, he no longer fears the squaw-ghost.” Even outlaws need friends! Next, Mark Todd‟s “Net Worth” is the story of a struggling performance artist who creates an avatar. Todd‟s story is a great commentary on the façade of internet fame; the story opens with the speaker incessantly Googling himself, seeking validation in a world he just can‟t seem to break into…until his avatar becomes more successful than he is. Of course, it IS all a façade—while seeming to create fame, he “becomes wary of fans who want to meet him in person,” cares nothing for increasing critical reviews (“even bad press floats his ratings higher”), and ignores his girlfriend‟s malediction that “That toy gonna swallow you up, if it ain‟t already.” By the end, will he even recognize himself in the mirror? Once we finally get to Thomas Mundt‟s “RoboCop Is Always Very Busy in Mid-June,” we can fully believe in the technical, man-made world policed by robots. Or a “real” world policed by “real” cops, but satirized as robotic, mechanical (and funny). These three fiction pieces chronicle main characters who move further away from real life until they are outside looking in. Enjoy this issue. We are confident in saying you won‟t be the only one. Best, The Editors
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