Alex Feldman, “Wrong Time...Oh Well 79

Hey Joe

Marissa J. McCants

Hendrix melted into the background, while we went to bed. Somehow iTunes filled chamber with smoky voice of ghost. My red haired wig and Forest Gump Jenny sunglasses over face, moving erratically, fell as you pumped into me from behind. Your hairy large hands on my emerald-green, velvet maxi dress with a split for dancing.

You anchored to the brown leather belt that matched my boots, lifting emerald-green velvet split. People said I looked so 70s chic for Halloween party. Beer to vodka to lines, me and you in this room that belongs to older bachelor who led us upstairs, well, told you about this room when he saw himself, maybe, in your eyes, when I couldn’t stop slurring words, when “No” came out after panties were down, and your sex was sexing the soft folds I told myself were safe tonight around people I knew.

People wonder why I tear up at rock and roll— Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin. Glorious music tainted to me, because it reminds me of the first time I wanted to swallow a bullet. Chills ignite up my arms, I rock myself when the guitar rift from “Hey Joe” plays. I want to dive into traffic, but usually dive into bathroom to cry or vomit, though it’s been three years. Why can’t an old song die? Every November first, sourness fills my mouth, no matter how many glasses of alcohol, it won’t erase.

Handsome Silver Fox

Marissa J. McCants

Heated, small, brilliant touching of mouths, enough to get me nude, lie on my back for next evening phone sex. You kissed me one November night in Paris. Cigarette smoke drifted from finger tips, through hair, down the block, around the corner as four pairs of eyes gathered outside a bar, you only looking into mine. Your beer alongside my rosé inside, amongst new friends I thought you handsome, pioneer-like with withered but attractive face. The women born in your century had a mingled conversation of exhales around us. Anytime spent in the glare coming from under your eyelashes, black wings of a raven cutting a blue sky, leading to your warm hands grabbing my waist, as tipsy blonde licked her words carefully. She looked at me like she might be into shes, while I stared at her, kept a conversation going, I could feel your nickel eyes, over right shoulder, down my thighs. How young you thought me, how fragile a moment when alcohol only lets you remember so much. A prism of hellos, clinked glasses, spilled wine, and laughter, then a quick question, “Come out for a smoke?” I never smoke, but I lit up without coughing just outside the peeking scope of windows with people we knew on the other side of glass too drunk to notice joint departure. Another tried to use his eyes on me too, but he too drunk to, and the short guy who looked twenty said he was forty-five…oh the stillness of black skin, how it holds time in a cupboard white skin doesn’t have, so creases on your neck, around the eye, country line dance across your forehead…none of it stopped your pursuit. After they walked and cabbed away, you stood square to me asked one more question “Let me kiss you?” A pause…while I thought How old is he, where will this go, am I just the brown thang he expects to fuck tonight?

View From a Stopped Train

Matthew Peluso

Stopped. Somewhere between Elizabeth and Newark on the Trenton-New York line Rusted and bowed chain-link fence catches the track-side refuse like a net Graffiti-covered “Carnival Cruise Line” shipping containers stacked like large metal Legos Offer no hope of sun, sand or warmth in southern destinations Dilapidated building after dilapidated building - the skeletons of industry long-since dead A tableau fit for a maudlin Springsteen song

Except for one red brick house with a clean, kept yard Incongruous. An older African American man on the porch in a rocker facing the train How many trains has he watched pass by? Thousands of faces briefly glimpsed

Bet he’s lived in that house for decades Bet he’s stayed long after his neighbors left Bet he’s fought in a war Bet he’d share his dinner with you Bet he’s got a quick, easy smile Bet he’s quality in every sense