Issue 99

No second chances, because we just don’t listen. Malachi had the right idea: burn us all, root and branch. A wineglass moans, in sympathy to some fustian screed in the far-flung skies and the best we can do is pour it full with weeping and disdain. That’s the sound of vexed, my friends, pas de…

Simone Weil What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his garden; and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.  Luke 13:18–19   ———————–(Solesmes)…

The slashed body Hanging from a branch, A harness of blood Streaming over the shoulders…. From a gash on one leg A gemmed rosary of a rivulet Slides down his calf and over his foot To drip between his toes. The miracle is that it stops mid-air And swings lightly in the breeze. Then the…

On this triptych we have three saints, ———————–on this one three stories. Sometimes they knew each other, ———————–but usually not. In what order do we view them? The paint that was once wet changed almost immediately to a color different from itself. It has been chipping for seven centuries as if it, also, is dissatisfied…

Painting by Phyllis Kriegel Stepping from the blackness and blood-red hollow of the tree —–she juggles—not one, but five ———————————-round apples. Beside her, Adam —–whirls clumsily in mid-air— ————————————-hips over head, arms and legs —–askew—as if he, too, had been tossed up into the blurring spiral. —————————–He tries to steady himself with a foot- like…

In Bossche’s The Martyrdom of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, we’re tied to a tree and worked with our own tools. They don’t know how a body works, but have heard people talk about pain. It hasn’t been autumn for a while. The trees are empty. The power lines hum. Others mill about, wait for something…

I want to be like a church, but I’m my father’s barn. Emptying my mind to the August lawn storm windows, burnt and mothen things, baling wire I found the pump organ I disassembled and left under a plastic tablecloth like someone I’d opened up only to abandon mid-surgery. She tried to teach me to…

I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left. ——————————————-Exodus 10:4–5 My daughter picks cicadas like apples from the tree. This one cracked up and that one is sleeping too high to reach. She…

pills before bed. Job swallows, spits, vomits in the sink. Pink bubbles foam then clog the drain. Job’s wife cleans what she can with a snake, unscrews the trap to scoop Job’s sins with a slotted spoon. So much slips through, the runs of cheap soup. She gives the best part of her day to…

i. The kitchen clock is timelessness, its tick like rain resuming on the windowpane, eventually making the driveway slick. It’s not God’s tears. It’s we who cry in vain. ii. We buy protective glasses to prepare. The sun will disappear: total eclipse. We’ll pack a picnic lunch, head south to stare at what we hope…