Jamison Crabtree

in eden; there was a man a woman; a tgi friday’s

; with good service that your parents would be alright going to get dinner at; there was super slow-mo and fast forward; and they weren’t mutually exclusive so the hummingbird and the turtle were fine with each other; and there was background music and it set the proper tone for sleeping under a tree or jumping off the edge of a quarry and breaking your head at the bottom; there was even appropriate music for when your head was growing back together; there was a way to put your fingers to your lips that would let you talk to the birds; there was a big purple army tank and hand grenades and those other grenades with the stick coming out of them like some robotic drumstick and there were flowers; and readymades; and a few nice Picasso pieces that you could press your skin against without hurting them; and there were sculptures of most of the animals that never existed; but not all of them; and you you you; you could ride them all; without worrying about being asked to leave; and there were fruit platters; and a school where you could learn how to draw boobies and wieners or make comfortable furniture or brew up new drugs; or you could even learn to create the illusion that there was a bird in your heart and a hare in your hat and that there was never room in your sleeves for anything but arms; it was eden; like I said; so the moon didn’t yet have a face to judge us with and so our nights were still secret and eden was a miserable place to be; because consequence was impossible; because spilling juice across the floor was no different than having to bury your parents in separate holes two weeks apart from each other;

Michael Mlekoday

SELF-PORTRAIT WITH POLLINATION

I will make something of you both juniper
and ipecac. A month of night.
Something that sings like a housefly
moments before the palm,
that cracks like a bottle or window
in winter. Although it is the oldest invention,
the first time you built a fire
is something to remember.
The other times, less so.
Tonight I didn’t kill anything.
Tomorrow I will
sell flowers by the pound,
the neighbors will smash them
into their noses and close their eyes.

J.P. Dancing Bear and Julie Speed

Still Life With Suicide Bomber 1

after a painting by Julie Speed

Always this animated debate about the fruit
Eve pulled down from the Tree
of Knowledge. Others so certain

of Pomegranates. And a few
who believe in how the shape of a pear fits
the human hand like a grenade. The shadow

of fruit with stems can be man-
ipulated into the rough horn of a devil.
Think of the ear as pear shaped—

if only a human could hear like fruit does!
Imagine the music of pollination
each day, like a prayer-song,

and that this is as close to God
as you will ever come. That the pluck
of a stem is not defilement

but a rebirth—a renewal of faith.
If mouths are as silent as a pears
then seeds would be our common tongue.

I would speak my mind
in branches and leaves without fear
of another’s terrible blossoming hand.