O MEDUSA

GIFT FEATHER

ISHION HUTCHINSON

A black feather for the old man, who of late hobbled into the vale, rose-tinted, dithering his bitmap gospel. A cormorant’s, the feather.

By heft a scholar, one not unjust, or so it felt when I slashed his last work with it and a double-crested grunt flounced out. To his question,

whether verse administers medicine or tar, I would say I have seen a place called Îles de la Madeleine where, spectral, in small rock pools,

the former bloomed. Near-field plume, the feather fell from there. Still even, light-drawn density avails ills only in fulminant ink. Bloodletting,

so goes, goes darkly against the sun.

O MEDUSA

SOPHIA SHALMIYEV

Iclasp my hands to face this portrait of Medusa, head still firmly attached, and ask her on our behalf, Is this the year everyone can be formally asked to stop saying the phrase: He’s a good guy, but…?

Like last night. He’s a good guy but he is a violent alcoholic who chokes women and drops racist comments about those types of people, giggling. Here he is at the reading — which I had to leave quite suddenly because my ex forgot to pick up our two children. This good guy gets a hug and a whiskey from the bartender, talks over the keynote speaker with a mic; he is not asked to leave, he is asked to shut up, but only by the speaker, who is exhausted, alone, and almost done with her book tour.