NEW! 3 poems by Gina Barnard

Gina Barnard

Three poems

ALBA

Nudge my nose just under
your ear, sometimes we slather
too much praise, like mayonnaise.
After tea, the bed is still warm
with you, mayonnaise.


ELEGY

You eat a sweet potato so fast your chest fills with cement and you hiccup to catch your breath.


FIRE ANT

dug its head into the back of my thigh
sliding down
stairs in the bedroom, the old house.

*

A pinch--
a yearning.

NEW! Poem by Jess Novak

Jess Novak

IN PICTURES, EVEN THE WALLPAPER GLOWS

I’ve been talking to this girl online—Jack calls her 

Internet Crush Katie, but she’ll be Real Human Being Katie 

soon enough, & that’ll fuck 

everything right up. 

In the smartphone pictures she sends me, 

her breasts burn white, overexposed and chewable;

like a model in a Bacardi ad, she throws 

her head back, perpetually laughing, 

surrounded by girls, more girls, so many girls, 

girls who are all

just my imaginary type, girls who flaunt

cool band t-shirts & expensive haircuts, 

girls who might text me cute things: 

let’s watch ice cubes melt

or let’s poke bugs with sticks together.

Girls who wouldn’t ask why the porn I watch

is so weird or call my mom when they haven’t heard 

from me. I bet they wouldn’t still be friends with all my old friends

so I don’t get to see them. They would never remember 

to tuck in the sheets.