The Count, by Pravasan Pillay

It’s a Monday. I stand at the kitchen sink, and wash and dry the lid, which is from a tin of mackerel. It’s a thin piece of rectangular metal, that has a slight curve, and a ring pull attached on one end. One side of the lid is dull, and the other side is brushed and shiny.
 
I open the cupboard below the sink and feel my way to a plastic bucket that is hidden behind the trash can. I take the bucket out the cupboard, and shake it to create room. I drop the lid into it. It clanks as it hits the other lids. I’m not sure how many are in it now.
 
I started saving them out of curiosity. My wife casually asked me one day at lunch to estimate how many tins of mackerel I think I eat in a year. The question stuck with me, and needled. So, I devised this method to keep track of my annual consumption.
     
I shake the bucket again, and place it back behind the trash can. I notice that I have a small cut on my thumb. It’s from the sharp edge of the lid. It’s not the first time it's happened. I plan to start keeping track of this. I walk to the bathroom to get a plaster.

Two Poems by Joseph Tate

Poetics

1.

 

Between here, as our Gunslinger says, and

formerly: asbestos gloved and took-en

 

by

 

"the mere rub-a-dub of the decasyll"

-“abon" as it were a—

 

Foot fault. 

Love.

 

 

2.

 

    (to remind myself)

 

“nope        

               heis wronf”

   

[signed in the plate] F. Chauveau (&Team),

inv. et fec.

3 & 5.

← Percent Sand —.

And: “The flowre hath α ι writ theron, which letters are of greef.”

In: “The flowre hath α ι writ theron, which letters are of greef.”

 

12A.

Brutality en pointe on a knuckle, a fingertip. 

Tethered to the field. 

12B.

Not a field.

The bony labyrinth / þe se of Occean, opening.

Lesson Plan(s)

    after M and D

The manifest figure & its receding ground—

his rumble, she called it, of apples.

A flag of the most softest of soft fossils,

the symbolic order encausted;

the velvet flop will punctum any Studium™.

Tooth into the true-blue bitter of the lemon, 

but gorge in the gleam of the pulp, trust its daylight.

This is a table, she said, fit for a storm.

Two Poems by Greg Wallace

THE GREAT BEAR

Pushing to the great bear
blue night shadows on the sand
young girls lead animals on chains
so as to make it rain forever
geometries of fabled skies
great bird of white fur
lost in the night
the ruin was damaged within
freight for dread occasion

Sleepwalking miseries of despair
blue powder dusting yellow bodies
crystal girl dusting pale
magnetic sunset
black velvet bruised by  
delirium of frozen crystal
pale girls travel in the air
with hair of fire

CASTLE TO CASTLE

She rides on a pink rainbow
a vague arc shimmering into view
the glass emits a feeble light
on the verge of fading into nothingness
a horse tumbles from the cliff and falls into the sea
the glass in the window is frosted
she is different than the one who came before
she covers her eyes with her hands
to enter the world of demons is difficult
no light shining from the lighthouse on the island
the horse floats when it hits the water
an almanac lost at sea
each girl nods as she passes by
a faint column of smoke drifts up from the bamboo