“My heart did not break for three decades and then it did and I began to see things from inside out / and the outside lost sheen and dust / Interior worlds, my…

“Here is the dog planet at last where all is running/and sinking, rising and running again—/lessons in flight./To those mad glad beasts/all is cold and holy clouds/and certain sacred sky.”—Ashley Crout Speculative Friction…

“Any one of these days can be the new first day, Day One, where things seem to be going well. No problem. Any missed understanding can be beginner’s luck, it can be even…

“The novel I finished reading/last night/in my system like a drug,/a hangover, numbing, dulling,/but for something dark, unseen,/some residue, some fated turn./I have outlived myself,/what now?”—Patricia Waters Speculative Friction By Claire Bateman GREENVILLE…

“It’s as if our home yearns to satisfy us, although lately dinner’s been perfunctory and the dusting lackluster. In this, we sense our home’s human ambition, its human distraction. Tonight, we will loan…

“I soaked up like a sponge/my mother’s Thirties ethic: Throw away/nothing! Yet somehow, out of the blue,/here you are, a spendthrift, prodigal, clean/break with your ancestral line, a brush/with risk and danger.”—Maryann Corbett…

“We often hear the word quirky applied to contemporary poets (just glance at five random blurbs, you’re sure to find quirky), but perhaps no one writing today inhabits the word quite as fully…

“Love is strange and calls me to stranger things/When I was young I thought that I’d know why./I’ve drawn my life—a shape with forty wings.”—Luke Hankins Speculative Friction By Claire Bateman GREENVILLE South…

“There were three girls jumping/double dutch on the blacktop below/him, and he looked down because/even their voices sounded nimble.”—Charlotte Matthews Speculative Friction By Claire Bateman GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—December 2017—Charlotte Matthews’ most recent…

“Write what you know, my first teachers suggested. But I have never been a big fan of reality. Reality feels like sandpaper on my skin. Sometimes I think I would love to escape…