I say, "tell your story!"
No matter how many times it's been heard
Refuse the critics dogeared comments
about broken records,
get out of your rut,
let it go.

Our story is our pleasure
our experience of breath
Lived despite the presence
or non-presance of tragic moments.

Cut foot
bad catch
wrong number
missed bus

small instances of life:
lost job
low pay
Lonely Sundays
no friends.

Let me know, tell me each minute.
Share.

"Arise!" I hear an old woman sing.
I could grumble like a glut
and pishaw her joy like an ungrateful
spoiled child ******
from poverty,
punches, and
poor grades.

I could arise dancing,
waving arms over head,
smile mapped from cheek to cheek,
feet tapping on a
chilly
tiled
floor.
drinkin' my oj,
shufflin' my good day,
off to school and away
up.

I could lie still
and wish to die
slow.
Never move.
stare out my bright
window.
Waste inside more.
Close my eyes,
go back to sleep.

I could middle ground,
roll out of bed,
turn to the left,
scratch my hair mess,
hate today, miss my dreams,
remember that one
plan I'd made yesterday
to see.
Turn on the music box,
find a harmonious voice,
cry from this strangle I'm in,
and hope for one more sin.

Monday morning
kitten climbs
cloudy sky.

Tobacco, the first intoxicant wrapping me in a gauze of sultry skip days,
Wine, beer, swimming pools with bikinis, suntans, tropicana oil,
Kansas heat on concrete. Lawrence, Ks, KU, art and black, red ochre conti crayons,

Life drawings of nudes on platforms, fat, poor,
glamorous models, how i wanted to be one of them
stripping myself in front of you all,
my young beautiful naked body
you'll never see that again.

Fresh grass and lemonade,
Volvos driving across our country
55mph...80 was faster.

One night stands
led to terror.

Hurting men forever.

Barns and Nobels stealing book
coffee was new
young at 25.

Walking the street in Kansas City,
Warwick street with it's three story walk up
trimmed colonial white
1995.

Tea, herbs, kale with sesame,
Health food shops on corners
young women of 23 starting their biz.
We could do it our own way back then.

Abortion, adoption, college graduation,
law school, med school, drop out,
write.

Chad Abushanab
Halloween


For Halloween this year I’ll be a man.
I’ll work my hands to ****** rags and use
my fists to prove which truths I understand.

I’ll paint my face into a mask of bruise,
like coming home after a barroom fight.
A man should fight, my father said, and lose

sometimes—his beaten brow will mock the night.
I’ll swallow up the pint of Cutty Sark.
I’ll stumble home and fumble with the light.

He said the bottle barely leaves a mark
burning away the places where you’ve bled.
On Halloween, I’ll drink the autumn dark.

I’ll be a man the way my father said.
On Halloween, we’re closer to the dead.
His teeth were crooked and his hands were red.

↔

Chad Abushanab is a PhD student at Texas Tech University. His poems and essays have appeared in Raintown Review, Bayou Magazine, Jellyfish Magazine, and Colorado Review, among others. He is the managing editor of Arcadia.

Lauri Anderson Alford
more or less



fifteen years ago more or less
my father killed a man
on the road with his car
of course to him
it isn’t more or less
he knows the date the time
to the minute
the pattern on the man’s shirt
how blood on asphalt looks
only like water
lately he’s been repeating himself
calling to tell me the same things
over and over again
my grandmother has died
his sisters are *******
there was bone in the ashes
I worry he might disappear
again as he did
fifteen years ago more or less
when the road took the man
more or less
after he died more or less
while my father watched
more or less or more
which is it I want to know
because a thing like that
can never be both
or else it is nothing
only more and never less
or less and never more
more road more black
more wet more night less
stars less sight more
fast more glass
less heart less breath
less hands on chest
more quiet more time
more nothing and always
more and more and more
and more less

↔

Lauri Anderson Alford’s writing has appeared in Cincinnati Review, Greensboro Review, The Common, Willow Springs, Meridian, and elsewhere. She lives in Auburn, Alabama, with her husband and sons. Visit her online at www.lauriandersonalford.com.

Poetry sings humanity's tale of living.