... fourteen dollars at the flea market in Carlisle but it won’t fire. And a bear that won’t eat at the state fair. Love without blossom everywhere. Some man has fallen in the mud and the history of that is clear. Raised up to one arm fell again. Raised his head to see how...

... ringmaster will whisk him away, teach him to blow fire rings for lions to leap through. The question is who won’t stake a claim? Who won’t drive a fanning flag into my father’s gut, and wait, camera-eyed, for timely reporters? Who won’t forget that here, coal is a type of savior...

... like origami swans, pressed against pages,       smothered between voices,       between tongues, behind       teeth. Mama says she won’t go back to him, to his pink ginger skin that savored of bitterness but still, cleansed her palette so well...

...Nick Lantz © 2014 Nick Lantz 2014 Nick Lantz Natasha Oh darlink, oh darlink, won’t you give up moose and squirrel business? I am in kitchen sharpenink knives, I am in bedroom sharpenink myself, but you sit on couch, you watch on TV moose pull America out of hat...

... except once the dark creeps up blends you soft & safe & human tonight they won’t arrest you for impersonation the white hot lights are a storm but night comes calmly night writes fan letters to Kim Novak you dye your hair white hot blonde but it comes out brass the wash is done everyone’s asking you...

... alone with the ocean does not make a siren. Here, memory. I won’t stroke your neck’s salty ring or capsize you sans indulgence. I admit I’d rather drag you    net-caught fish. minnesota review 87 (2016) DOI 10.1215/00265667-3630820  © 2016 Allison Donohue...

...Alex Chertok © 2017 Alex Chertok 2017 Alex Chertok Priapus Waking Up Hard So his parents won’t catch him pitching tent, young Priapus tiptoes past their bedroom to take his first piss, bent over the bowl, nursing the swelling from his dream’s black widow...

.... In Varner, Arkansas, 2001 the kidnapper orders peach cobbler, Jolly Ranchers and birthday cake. He keeps his eyes turned away while he eats and won’t stop jiggling his knee. In Stark, Florida, March 2002 the murderer orders a...

... laughing in the wind never a loud voice or a slap two horses hid in the trees stand still long strands of hair blow out in the breeze like branches father does not come here instead he yells from the garden they won’t get supper if they don’t hurry up...

... rushing off to stare at shrink-wrapped prime rib. He won't appreciate jokes About rarely seeing so much grey matter here. One of me will point out that help is short right now, why complain? The other will ask for a second paycheck and say, "Every entity for...

... worked submarine twenty years but slipped into the pig and we had to tap the heat anyway, or you can sure enough get black lung from working that coke oven but they won’t call it that pickle line cold roll five stand batch...

... field mouse, caught in the fence’s clasp, won’t fly to the brutal north that my mother watches over, waiting to disappear. Perhaps, they too fear the suck of a plane’s propellers. But my daughter is fire, not air. Not water. An element to be feared. I can drag...

... one duck after another until they tumble out of the sky like a rain of feathered boots. Supply trucks show up with crates of fresh ammuni­ tion. When there are no more ducks left, I shoot all the owls, then all the flamingos and the bald eagles. My brother won’t eat any of the dead. He keeps...

... warp and whine into the fields’ uncivil core. They live for war. But won’t trace the rabbit’s rapid pulse, bottom of the litter, drowning in nest. Hushed by the squirming weight of the rest. Even now, muscles thrusting, its papery flesh starts to stew back into rich July...

.... After I count to ten, you won’t remember anything I’ve said. minnesota review 83 (2014) DOI 10.1215/00265667-2781680  © 2014 Jason Bredle 59 © 2014 Jason Bredle 2014 ...

... & glass, to pick up the snow when it’s already gone. We won’t try. Tell me you want a bed filled with all the water the city can’t have & I’ll fill the bottles up until I can’t handle touching them. minnesota review 86 (2016) DOI 10.1215/00265667-3457699  © 2016 Justin...

... voice commands him. A headline won’t print that morning across his vision, telling him how to live. A luminous ampersand does not tattoo itself on his sternum, joining everything, spinning landscape that extends from the...

... brick house, city water. She becomes a magnifying glass to her brother's ineptness: he who receives $20 for gasoline for visiting their father in the hospital loads up their father's truck with items "he won't know he's missing," good-bye son...

...Paul Tyler 21 Paul Tyler Feeding Rena Three times a day we gather them from chairs, or corners, moving Rena last. Stuck in permanent squat, she is a rusty jackknife that won’t open, sharp and brittle...

... the Signmaker to apply the vinyl. 23 Operations is scared of the Chief and the Chief doesn’t like spending her guys’ time on hanging and DOT doesn’t like to approve the words because our boss once fired his sister and S & F won’t make...