Box by Andrew Shields

Our food is in a triple-layered box
that we can't open. Each layer has a hole
for things to fall through, while the sides have slits

that we can put our fingers in, or sticks

we've stripped the bark from with our teeth. We poke

at carrots or at apples left inside,

to slide them to the holes so they will fall

and fall and fall into our waiting hands.

And so we live on fruit and vegetables

and bark, until the box is finally empty.

Later, it's full again, and we begin

our fingering and poking work once more.

---

Andrew Shields lives in Basel, Switzerland. His collection of poems "Thomas Hardy Listens to Louis Armstrong" was published by Eyewear in 2015. His band Human Shields released the album "Somebody's Hometown" in 2015 and the EP "Défense de jouer" in 2016.

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Home by Jessa Forest

Home scratches at her shingles with tree branch fingers, pulls the air conditioning unit close to her grimy aluminum siding, and keens an empty song of mourning. We found her wandering the tornado snarled wild three months ago, starved and lonely. She doesn’t know how to take care of herself, you see? We fed her shards of dining room tables, kindling for the fireplace, and cast iron bathtubs clawed feet first. She was slow to recover so we gutted her plumbing, ripped out her nerves, and rewired the electricity. She let the water in every time it rained so we put a new roof on her and let her out for regular walks around the wolf pen. Let her mingle with the vultures, I said, let her feel useful and clean up the dead but no one wanted to listen. We found rot an mold in her corners, infused her insulation with antibiotics, and quarantined her for two weeks while she belched ladderback chairs, sofa cushions, wind chimes, and broken bookcases. She still has her bad days. After feeding time

Smoking and Swearing by Ian Manson

He’s stood outside, he’s on his break. He’s unsure whether to be smoking or swearing. He decides on both. Inhale. Fuuuck! Inhale. Fuuuck! A person, a visitor, or a patient. Heading to the hospital, sees his scrubs and scowls. “ It’s not very professional for a nurse to be smoking and swearing. ” But he doesn’t care. He’s already done his good deed for the morning and by midnight he’ll have done a dozen more. Yesterday was a paltry four. Tomorrow’s shift will be five or two or maybe eight, and another night of finishing late. Inhale. Fuuuck! He breathes a cloud of smoke. Watches it swirling, ascending, a spirit en-route to heaven. The person’s saintly sanctimony means nothing to him. Because he’s on his break. And he’s smoking, and he’s swearing. --- Originally from Scotland, Ian has lived and worked in Worcestershire for the last 11 years. He can normally be found performing his poetry and prose at events on the Worcester spoken word scene

The Pink Roll Top Bath is £995 and Says Sold. I Want to Know who has Bought it. by Wendy Allen

I grasp a piece of invisible text from Delta of Venus and bite so hard juice runs down to where I'm smooth inside. I am falling over the edge in anticipation of your mouth. My lips curve like the rim of the roll top bath, they smile, then say, fuck me over the side. Open mouthed, soft inside, I swell, clitoral bulbs freeze framed in slow, they grow - lento. I’m an Attenborough nature programme, my clitoris evolves from want. Don’t stop - you make me summer. --- Wendy Allen has been published in Atrium, Re-Side, Brunel Writer and Northern Gravy. She has a Legitimate Snack coming out shorty from Broken Sleep and is about to start an MA in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes.

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