LITSNACK

discovering
it doesn’t
do
pizza
the internet
Botox
John Coltrane

Molly Guy is an Australian writer
of micro-stories and poetry.
Her fourth book has just been
accepted for publication.

I would phone the police,
but I know they won’t come

and would only blame me
if they did,

and when I tried to explain
to them that nothing was missing,

it would sound like a lie,
and they would look

from me to the woman
seated at the table

with her head bowed
as evening quietly trembled

and recomposed the shadows
of unseen things.


Howie Good, a journalism professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz, is the author of 12 poetry chapbooks, including most recently Visiting the Dead from Flutter Press, My Heart Draws a Rough Map from The Blue Hour Press, and Ghosts of Breath from Bedouin Books. He has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize and five times for the Best of the Net anthology. His first full-length book of poetry, Lovesick, was released in 2009 by Press Americana. He is co-editor of the online literary journal Left Hand Waving.

He tells me he's a leg man
and I'm the leg of choice this evening.

When I was a wee thing
with a foreshortened torso
 resting atop two stilts,
I stuck two plastic Legg's Eggs
into my training bra.
Man the torpedoes, they said.  Nice try.
You'll never have the tits,
But nothing beats a great pair of legs.

I had the gams.

But Grable, Hayworth, Manfield, Monroe
had it all, didn't they?
Tits, ass,
and a leg to stand on.

He buys me a drink and I tell him the story
of the infamous Legs Malone.
She could shoot a gun with her feet.
Such a talent came in handy
in restaurants where 
both hands on the table at all times
was the rule. Nobody never said nothing
about both feet on the floor.

Legs caused irreparable damage to many a legman.

Later, I fold my legs under the table
at the restaurant where we eat
leg of lamb, of course,
and I watch his lusty, toothy ripping
of flesh from leg bone.

That night, I dream of sending him
my legs in a box
like two perfect
long-stemmed red roses.

Julie Innis lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her work can be found at The Northville Review, Prick of the Spindle, Pindeldyboz,Up The Staircase and elsewhere.

Perhaps a distraction
Or even a hint
When you tell another
The things you say
(My only wish)
Is that you loved me…
But that’s just one too many manhattans

The ground swept out to fight
And the bricks have lost their minds
She’s turned into the paperboy
Though her papers never show
The dying art of the secret
Standing alone in the hallway
I never got her to tell


Julien has published various illegitimate sketches in the Jibsheet, a weekly newspaper published at Bellevue Community College. He’s been published in Always Looking, Love’s Chance, Poet’s Espresso, The Stray Branch, Straylight, Soul Fountain, Languageandculture.net, Expressions, Eskimo Pie, Blink Ink, Poetic Matrix Press (poeticmatrix.com), and Northern Stars magazines, The Sheltered Poet blog (http://theshelteredpoet.blogspot.com/), and Record Magazine blog under July 2009. He also has a chapbook out called 24 Poems.

to smile without stretching it, hum
that little something  

that can never
be described only
experienced like a  

sudden wind to your face that
wakens you like  

you walked into
a dream for
one rare crash. 


D.P. was born in Kentucky and educated at Thomas More College. A founding member of Jack Roth's Yellow Pages Poets, he has published dozens of chapbooks, including a dual chapbook with Jennifer Bosveld, founder of Pudding House (the largest literary small press in America), and had poems in journals including The Bitter Oleander, Cornfield Review, Allegheny Poetry, Wind, Out of Sight, Paper Radio, The West Conscious Review, Cap City Poets, Doing It,Prick of the Spindle,Olentangy Review,Fourpaperletters, and the Green Fuse.