We took down the bird-feeder Because they told us to, even though None of the birds here are sick yet— We live in a period of excessive Pestilence, which sounds like a metal band Or the beginning of a tongue-twister Except it’s not so hard to say, Only to live in, red thread struggling Against passage through a needle’s eye, The space usually occupied by a rich man But they’ve all shot themselves into space, As if we aren’t already there; money In uncountable currency makes black Death savory, …

too busy living to hit record I dread the day your side-mouth impressions wry as a country song slip from my ridges and you with freckles real or imagined those teeth so honest eyes like a lightning strike a fox’s cackle, wicked and you the thinker in profile long fingers on knowing hands the whir-click of hidden clockwork I want to collect every likeness in my pocket an expression like coinage set in copper what if twenty years gone you are burnt …

On an afternoon walk, a cold wind went through me like a shot (whiskey, brandy, something dark) and he came to me, my grandfather. Winter like a dog at my fingertips—my first dog, Cochise, gorgeous, gentle, fur like snowfields. After Cochise died, my grandfather sat me down on the porch and said, “Everybody lives, and everybody dies. It’s called the circle of life.” And it made so much sense at eleven, …

You know he forgets names, where he left the keys. Some days floods cover land he says would never drown again. He hears my prayers then asks me to repeat, calling it a refrain. I abstain from meat and wine for forty days hoping to reset my soul. I try not to use my lover's name in vain. And yet I curse the man who forgets my birthday, forgets to pick up after the dog. Senescence is such a sonic word I hate to discover its meaning. I hate every diagnosis that dares doubt to double …

i. Fucking on the moldy leather couch, exhales drop clumsy from our mouths like apples blackened on the branch. In this version of heaven, I pull the stars down in fistfuls, fitful and soggy, let them rain down like cake. I tear at your body like it’s a rotting roof, like I might somehow reach through to sky. ii. I tried to plant a future in plastic rows like an alien crop but the spring days thrashed feral beneath me echoing You are nowhere to be found. iii. you were a river—I walked …

I saw a woman Crucifix about her neck Christ’s head a diamond D. A. Hosek’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Meniscus, California Quarterly, Rat’s Ass Review, I-70 Review and elsewhere. He earned his MFA from the University of Tampa. He lives and writes in Oak Park, IL and spends his days as an insignificant cog in the machinery of corporate America. More at http://dahosek.com. Featured Artwork: Dreams Elinora Westfall is a British writer of stage, screen, fiction, and …