SHEEP-KILLING DOG

by Michelle DeRose

Texas AG Ken Paxton steps in to make a woman’s life hell. Photo credit: DonkeyHotey / WhoWhatWhy (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Big hats welcome but not a Texas uterus
they won’t probe, tell you how
you can wear it in public,
a watched portal to the baby chute
they need it to be. I guess
to make future bullseyes? Because
there’s also not a barrel
they will look down, keep out
of campuses. In Texas
all depends on the tunnel. 
Barrels determine themselves but canals
are hyper-policed. At the end of every story
is a woman bleeding, empty, and an Attorney
General smug and whole as he always was.

Michelle DeRose hopes she can retire from teaching at the college level before she must relive a school shooting, and she is grateful she doesn't live in Texas. She teaches creative writing and African American, Irish, and world literature at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

LAST SUPPER

by Paul Smith





Richard Corey went out to eat
crossed the bridge over the canal
from the Old Quarter
followed a dark street
where suddenly appeared
a place brightly lit
where laughter, grub and cheer
were served
in a room full of shadowy silhouettes
‘What’s good in here?’ he asked
the waiter
‘Wait here’ he said
and brought the chef
a sober man
who told him
‘Not the White Gazpacho’
‘What then?’
‘Not the Osso Bucco’
‘What then?’
‘Not trying to make up for lost time’
‘You, then, chef of chefs’
Richard Corey took the chef’s hand
walked him down the dark street
crossed the dark bridge
over the dark canal
and had dessert

Paul Smith lives near Chicago. He writes fiction & poetry. He likes Hemingway, really likes Bukowski, the Rolling Stones, Beatles, Kinks and Slim Harpo. He can play James Jamerson's bass solo for 'Home Cookin' by Junior Walker & the Allstars.