Issue 8: N. W. Hall

broken is fixed

dead goldfish float more gracefully

through the bowl than living goldfish

the chocolate melted apart in a woman’s

pocket from the watery heat of her thigh

tastes sweeter than the grid of its birth

an unread poem aches with all the beauty

of the poem opened at the ribs by scholars

looking for something warm to stuff into

that last inch of pain free space in their guts

all the greatest lessons of the flesh are written

in the long furrow-like scars that obliterate the

delicate surface of the skin in a horror showcase

of the butchered meats unified in a human figure

if the sandcastles on the coastlines were kicked over

at once, then there would be a few more lovers on the beach

bears do all of their best dancing standing still in the maleficent

snare of the trap, waiting to see if death will bring the big drum

no crinolines shine like the remarkably wild in a gore shamble

despite the expertise tucked behind the great beards

of all the sea captains who never manned a lifeboat

the names of all the shipwrecked vessels still sail on

the bullfight is designed for the bullfighter to

help the bull toss its blood in handful sized

bursts of confetti that celebrate planned agony

a wedding is when a man and a woman get all of

their friends together to praise them for the fact

that they intend to do the work of whores on each

other’s bodies even after one of them is a corpse

to shape the sculpture of the flawless other

one must shatter the heart and use a shard

to master the sport of swimming

one must drown after exhausting the stroke

to perfect the art of watching goldfish breathe their last

one must not be afraid to flush the toilet many, many times

N.W. Hall likes to make poems too.