THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK

by Hallie Dolin

Last Tuesday the pointer moved one second closer 

to destruction. It's eighty-nine seconds to midnight.

Around the world, our weapons wait for our command:

all vigilant, sitting patiently through midnight. 

We hear reports of ever-growing plagues passed on,

although information blackout's our new midnight. 

No one draws wheat from chaff, facts from alternative,

or musters effort like we used to do. Midnight 

and its stifling, sleepless depths—no rest for us—

is a bruise seeping blood, this black and blue midnight.

We snipe over who deserves to rain their revenge 

on whom, whose forfeit lives should dim out to midnight,

but we've missed the point. Your fate is mine, my blood is

your bloodstain. It's eighty-nine seconds to midnight. 

Hallie Dolin is a pathology resident in Cleveland, Ohio and has been writing for fun for nearly three decades. Her work has previously been published in The Case Reserve Review and the now-defunct Flashes in the Dark. When she isn't trying to discover novel cures for frightening microbes, she spends her time working on an actual novel. She also enjoys knitting, playing the guitar, and spending time with her cat. 

THE PAINTED FACES

by Vidya Panicker

It was business as usual at brothel 59 in Delhi's GB Road, which houses more than 4,000 sex workers. What was unusual on the night of June 23 was the deliberate gait of Sameer Tyagi, a regular client of this brothel. Sameer appeared a bit jaded, busy on the phone, scanning the faces of about 20 odd garishly painted faces of women as they waited around for the next deal. It was 10pm, humid and a Bollywood number was playing loudly. —Anasuya Basu, Daily O, July 3, 2015; Image: Oil painting of a prostitute from Lahore's Red Light District, by Iqbal Hussain. Source: The Express Tribune (Pakistan) Blogs.

Here, and there,
the women behind the curtains
do not strip for you.

Through the folds of their
saree, and the pinched
fabric of their blouse
you occasionally catch a glimpse
of a sagging breast
or a tummy with overlapping stretch marks.

Foreplay:
you ask the one you choose.

She smirks at you
with her betel red lips
which she wipes with her palm,
pinches out two condoms from a tray,
lifts her saree and skirt up in a swift motion
and spread her tired legs on you.

Your desperate self is ready
needing no foreplay, apparently.
You lay back, relax
imagine the shudders
are a jolly lorry ride to Ladakh
or something better
while she works on you.

In about two minutes, or less
you zip up your pants
and walk out of the door.
Someone else quickly moves in
for his turn.

The painted face smirks again.

There is a daily quota;
a number signified
by the missing condoms on the tray
and later, she would run
like the rest of them—

Run home
to a sleeping child or a drunk husband
or a pimp who smacks his lips
but more often,
just to pee, and to cry out loud when the warm salty
liquid touches the bruises
that are never left to heal.


Based in the God's own country of Kerala, Vidya Panicker’s poems have appeared in The Feminist Review, So to Speak, Shot Glass Journal, One sentence Poetry, Three Line poetry, Aberration Labyrinth, Bangalore Review, and 4and20 Poetry.