The Importance Of Listening

I went on my own because I couldn't get anyone to come with me. What had once been an orchard was now a graveyard for old tires, sprung mattresses, rusty paint cans, even broken microwaves, scattered over the slope like the indecipherable wreckage of some puzzling event. The trees, untended for years, had long since stopped producing apples and been twisted into painful shapes by time and storms and then overwhelmed by creeper vines and opportunistic birds and insects. I just stood with my head cocked to one side as if trying to catch every single word the crows said.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie co-edits the journals UnLost and Unbroken.

Lipstick Car Wreck

Finally alone, you open your coat in the snowRevealing the soft hum of your pilot lightLiving, walking to the water’s edgeTo pray for river’s cleansethe water is polluted with reflectionSo you run, you always do, into an idlecar on the street outsideOf where you need to be, you’ve circled around3 times already (you’re not getting any more inside)and drive, flood down the avenue to the last bridgeLeft erect from burned out comings-aliveswitch, from automatic to manualStop self-correcting let it careenA smile like wreckage smears across your face

From Guest Contributor Wyatt Martin