The City That Always Sleeps

Grace Mcllrath

Once I Was Big Simon

Razidlo

The first toys I loved were green army men. I felt bigger back then, When plastic rifles were less than one inch long And every day was a story, and every character belonged And everyone had a base to stand upon, And when things went wrong And their legs broke We had glue. No one was gone that couldn’t be made strong again.

Army men never outgrew their bases.

Maybe it was just nice to be in control, Every game and story began the way I wanted, And everything ended perfectly With certainty; The only toll was time And I always had plenty Until I passed twenty And Grandpa passed away

And I learned that plastic and ashes care the same amount about what you have to say, And I pressed my face into my bedroom wall, And I learned I was old, and learned I was small.

I wish our knees were locked in their places, With wide solid stances and wide solid bases, Little rifles in our hands in permanent embraces, Scowls scrawled onto our un-aging faces, I felt bigger back then. I wish we could live my stories of green men.

The perfection. The un-ending. Blissful purgatory. I felt bigger back when It was all just a story.

Winter Break

Scott Rust

On the road, I am free, I am wild, I am brave Driving through woods, and prairies and plains. Hands on the wheel, eyes on the road. Where do I go? I’m going home.

Highway 52 is the way out of Iowa

As I drive, time slows down, and the wind picks up But in the car it was warm, despite the snow outside. My face is rosy as I pass through the same old small towns.

Home is the place where the road ends. Where I am safe; no one will find me.

Wisconsin, miles away from here

No one’s eyes watching me grow.

Untitled Hans Harelimana Hirwa

Untitled Hans Harelimana Hirwa

Missing: Anyone

Mia

Irving

My arms rustle through the grass, dew streaking my jacket with muted squeaks. The moon remains a small dot in the sky, its plated glow familiar but estranged. My grass-angels stop flailing as the moon draws closer. Its caters smooth into spherical perfection, the shiny cast enlarging until it overtakes the sky.

I sit up, my palms brushing severed grass. No, that’s not right. I go up, up, up, as gravity loses its effect on me. My back arches and my limbs trail behind me like the dust tail of a comet. Squinting, I adjust to the flood lights unleashed on me as I traverse up this blue beam.

The jolting blue airwaves deliver me through the opening of the ship. The entrance seals with a scrape of metal, and a surge of energy kills the beam. I float on air until a steel table slides underneath me, the powerful force easing off of my body.

A hidden door opens to my right, and I expect aliens. Either slimy and gray with slanted eyes and sticky fingers, or small and green and naked, with smooth, sexless skin.

Instead, three cows roll out on office chairs. They sit upright, pink udders flopping over the edge of the chair, their large and extended torsos elevated. Their giant heads twitch and regard me with inquisition, little legs scuttling over to my table. Wide brown eyes, of mostly pupil, stare down on me.

“You can sit up if you like,” one of the cows says. I did as she asked, still cowering from their stature.

“Perhaps we should introduce ourselves,” she says. “I’m Milkshake.”

“Je m’appelle Madame LeBoeuf,” the brown one, with a French accent says. The third was black and white, the same coloring as Milkshake. “Dr. Moo.”

“You’re probably wondering why you’re here,” Milkshake says. “And why we’re in your galaxy.”

“There’s more than mine?”

“Humans discovered that a century ago,” Dr. Moo interrupts.

“Oh.”

“Are you sure he’s the one?” Dr. Moo asks Milkshake.

“He has to be,” she says.

“I am what?”

“We need your help, Midge. To retrieve something we cannot grasp.”

They stare at my hands with astute light behind their eyes. In the way you can tell an animal is adoring, but feeble, I’m the one staring blankly into a perceptive gaze.

“Come with me,” Milkshake says, walking on two legs to an edge of the room. She taps on the wall with her black hoof, the atoms rearranging into that of a glass window. Then she kicks a spot near the ground, where an iron step spouts out of the ship. I hold her hoof as I step on, now matching her nine foot height. “We need you to get that,” she points to a small white object floating in the speckled sky. Even from yards away, I know what it is. That fucking milk carton. Always there to ensure something goes wrong.

“You want me to go out there?” I look into her face. Short fur lines her head, the white pattern declining into an V-shape down her snout, the black coloring sweeping the rest of her face. Thick eyelashes border her dark eyes, with water-droplets dotting her pink, rubbery nose.

“Yes, but don’t be afraid. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

“And we found a space suit especially for you,” Madame LeBoeuf says. “From a bon government facility.” We all look to Milkshake, who seems to have the final say. “Let’s suit him up.”

Dr. Moo, Madame LeBoeuf, and Milkshake are waiting for me after I put on the space suit. They’re huddled on the circular floor, mooing in disagreement. Milkshake smiles as I approach, the pink flaps of her muzzle lifting to reveal giant bucked teeth.

“Here’s your cap with a built-in radio, which we’ll use to communicate,” Milkshake says. Madame LeBoeuf kicks a panel on the wall which expertly sprouts into a control table of big blinking buttons their hooves can navigate. I place the cap on my head with some difficulty, fumbling with the giant snow-gloves on my hands, and wait for my next instructions.

“And the clip and retractable string that tethers you to the ship,” she shows me, pulling the intricately engineered metal which snaps back into place. I hook the carabiner on a metal ring by my hip, and tug on the string which surged from a secure place on the floor.

“And lastly, your helmet.” I imagine, if she hadn’t burgeoning hooves for hands, she’d place the helmet on my head and fix it to my suit, wishing me luck. Instead I do it myself.

“Setting the radio up now,” Dr. Moo says, and static fills my ears and bounces along the glass.

“Check one two,” I say, the cows nodding as I was heard.

“Allons-y,” says Madame LeBoeuf.

Milkshake hits a giant circular window in front of the control board which they’ll be watching me from. With a small push, she pops open another window I’ll jump out of. She leads me to the edge, guiding me with my glove on her hoof. I look up at her, the best I can with my chopped peripheral vision, and was contented by her warm brown eyes. “See you soon,” she says, and joins the others by the control panel.

A deep breath circulates through my chest. I scoot my feet closer to the edge and then walk off.

I am light. I am air. I’m not tethered to gravity or earthly splendors as I float through the atmosphere, unable to steer, but surely drifting to the milk carton. My vision flips as I spin lazily, and I exhale out of relief that I’m still followed by a trail of string.

I was hoping to be closer to the stars- maybe even touch one- but most are still far away. They come in many colors. Orange, yellow, blue, purple. With the radiance they omit, it’s so dark. The darkest I’ve ever been in. And yet I’m glad I can’t see the sun, because I don’t think I can stare in the face of pure light.

I’m racing towards the milk carton still, Milkshake’s voice in my ear. “Have you found it yet?”

My gloved hands reach towards the carton and I grab it before it can float away, enveloping it in my arms. “I have it.” It’s the same one I’ve always seen. I spin it over and check what absence in my life it’ll mock me with now. MISSING: ANYONE, it reads, with a printed picture of a contoured star. “This is the one.”

Madame LeBoeuf’s voice comes from the radio in my ear. “And how are you liking space?”

The ether’s expansiveness glares through my restricted view. “It’s…”

“It’s alright if you’re unable to finish,” Milkshake laughs.

“Ok, Midge, we’re going to pull you in soon,” Dr. Moo interrupts. “We just have to”

Commotion comes over the radio, the bucking din of disagreement in my ears. “What’s happening?” I ask. The space ship is still there, holding me steady. Then the metal string snakes towards me, racing on stardust, until the severed end whips at my limbs. I frantically swimout of its path. “What’s happening?” I’m moving, but they’re still, and getting further away. “Milkshake, what’s going on?”

“Don’t worry, we’re going to find a way to-” her voice crackles and breaks, the radio depleting into a dormant hiss.

“Milkshake?” Fear infiltrates my voice. “Anyone?”

I wriggle my arms and legs, still gripping the milk carton, trying to paddle back to them, but it’s no use. I’m flying too fast, and in the opposite direction, the detached string weighing me down like a ball and chain. The UFO is almost out of sight, and my lungs swell as I scream, wordless in this vast expansion.

The UFO collapses from view. “Don’t leave me! I can’t do this on my own!” No shiny silver ship. “I can’t do this!” Just black night. “Please help me!”

My senses dim. I am unable to look up or down, there’s only what’s in front of me. It’s quiet. Even the rampant hissing from my broken radio can’t drown out the sounds of pure nothing. I bring my knees to my chest and curl up into as small of an area I can fit into. I hug the milk carton, press its face to my glass as I drift away.

It’s just me now. Just me.

Prairie Diver: After Athena Kildegaard’s “Midden”

Aislinn Geedey

The white pickup stops at the gate. Someone jumps off to let us into the next world just off the highway.

The Anthropocene was just a bad dream –Bison roam, unimpeded by foolish things like roads or buildings, and Baptisia alba and Andropogon gerardii cover the earth.

The splinters in my thighs and the sting of a sunburn anchor me. No – this is real. This is Nachusa.

The pickup rolls to a halt once again. I hop into the sea of grass and wade out out out until the pickup is a shining island in the distance. Andropogon gerardii can grow up to six feet, but I am sure that it was much taller.

I dive –

Baptisia alba Andropogon gerardii

Baptisia alba Andropogon gerardii wild Baptisia alba big Andropogon gerardii wild white baptisia And ropogon bluestem wild white indigo and big bluestem –And I am crouching down next to the earth itself.

I am surrounded. I am held. It has been so long since I was small.

Roscoe’s in May Simon Razidlo

When Spring comes so do the trees, And I wish I was a tree.

The trees get all horny and ornery and they sex the bumblebees And they rub up against each other and pollinate the breeze, They sweat sap and push their long branching arms through each others’ messy canopies and strip down to their bark and they spin seeds and creak and moan together, And if the wind was music then this would be Roscoe’s,

One big bosky orgy, everybody looking for someone, nobody knowing who, Lonely trees, but all their roots are tied up in all each other’s, You never feel more alone than when each body or tree trunk pressing up against you Isn’t your own, you’re stepping on their feet and it’s like roots, because if you fall you all fall together, they look right through you searching for the person you know you could be, for them, for a night, they look right past you, and even as that knife-glance cuts your heart to the quick you thank her because you were thinking of falling and she had no choice but to support you with her turned elbows, and you thought you might be sick but you can’t feel yourself anymore, you forgot where your ribcage ends and her elbow begins, it’s all just one big organism, you are all just fingers, the forest is alive and all the trees sway the same way in the wind, and it’s dirty and unclean and it still looks like dancing.

I wish my feet were roots so I could soak up the spilled alcohol through my toes. I wish I could do photosynthesis with the fluorescents. I wish my branches were in your canopy and our bark was on the ground and we could put the “lumber” in slumber party, something funny about morning wood,

But Roscoe’s closed.

The only music I hear is the crackle of branches and the breeze. When Spring comes I’ll sit outside all alone And sneeze.

Driving to Kwik Trip

Marshall Laidlaw

With your best friend at 2 AM

At the edge of your small town

While Taylor hums through the speakers

As you laugh at the week’s misfortunes

Or philosophize your sordid lives

Or sit in sacred silence

Is a piece of heaven more palpable than a blessing, More intimate than a prayer.

For when you cry your eyes dry

After torturous days gone by, Will God buy you Bosco sticks

And remember to grab the marinara?