The Heir | Andrew Coburn
Forced March | Robert Lietz
Dear Leader Dreamer | Gabriel Check
Antipastoral: Dairymen | Amy Groshek
Snapshots of the Epic | Gregory Lawless
Three Reliquaries | Laurence Davies
The Inexorable | Stefanie Freele
Travel Photography | Joshua Walker 
Post-Christmas Inventory | Laura Kolb
Cityscapes, Silos, Blue Nudes | Amber Krieger
Farming Silence | Lauren Ashleigh Kenny
Evan in the Tent | Walter Cummins
Three Poems | Grace Wells

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Snapshots of the Epic | Gregory Lawless


        We do not like some things and the hero
	doesn’t.
	Marianne Moore

Here the hero tries his eyes
after his winter’s sleep.
Here apple blossoms
pelt the moat 
between passing mallards. Here 
the hero recites his dreams 
into the sink. He knows his fate 
by rote. Today, 
he will burn
his rival’s vineyards
to the ground, and steal
his wife and chattel, 
his barrels of ale. Here
the hero splits his lips 
in half with a single finger
to cue his lover.
He makes the sound
of mallards landing softly 
on the water.
The gods are near,
he whispers, or else,
it’s father. Outside 
there are horses.
The gates are down.
The mowers lean upon
their rakes and sickles.
By now, he knows his life 
is long. He looks around,
and he sees nothing
he will not own.




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commentary | poetry | fiction | chicago | spring 2007   

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