They have ways of getting around. I remember
when we went on vacation to Green Bay; it was
our Disneyland. We’d get a hotel and that hotel
was a seminary, a galaxy, a Wisconsin bewitching
perfection where we couldn’t believe how a pool
could be heated to such perfection, like we were
swimming in our own urine, and perhaps we were.
I remember a comedian at the show my parents
took me to, how he said he peed in the pool and
couldn’t believe when everybody else complained,
even if he was standing on the balcony when he
did it. I searched for his name on the Internet,
the comedian, and found nothing. Did he die?
Did he never exist? Did his stage name die?
It was so many years ago. Decades. I was so
little. I was never little. I’m huge. The last
woman to break up with me, a self-described
“Malaysian-Chinese-American” who was so
beautiful that she asked me to please stop
telling her how beautiful she is, also told me
that my height is “freakish.” I remember her
standing in the doorway, the light outside like
a choir. I didn’t watch her walk to her truck.
I remember my father pulling into the ugly
gorgeous Green Bay streets and how I pointed
to an adult bookstore, saying I wanted to go
there. He said no. I said I was sick of children’s
literature. I wanted to read an adult book.
He said it wasn’t what I was thinking it was.
I asked what he meant. He didn’t laugh.
My mother looked uncomfortable. I didn’t
understand. Decades later, I bought a porn-
blocker for my computer. It didn’t work.
A friend of mine is a social worker. She said
that Google and Amazon have made billions
on porn, that the industry owns everything.
She’s dating a girl who, she says, used to be
in porn. I ask her about it one day, after I
just lost in Scrabble. She asks what I want to
know. I ask how much she made. She asks,
That’s it? That’s all you want to know?
I tell her I don’t know. I hear a toilet flush—
their upstairs neighbor. We know every time
he goes to the bathroom. Such a strange thing
to know. She tells me she made a thousand.
Total? No, each time. That’s it? She hates
my response. We hear the toilet flush again.
when we went on vacation to Green Bay; it was
our Disneyland. We’d get a hotel and that hotel
was a seminary, a galaxy, a Wisconsin bewitching
perfection where we couldn’t believe how a pool
could be heated to such perfection, like we were
swimming in our own urine, and perhaps we were.
I remember a comedian at the show my parents
took me to, how he said he peed in the pool and
couldn’t believe when everybody else complained,
even if he was standing on the balcony when he
did it. I searched for his name on the Internet,
the comedian, and found nothing. Did he die?
Did he never exist? Did his stage name die?
It was so many years ago. Decades. I was so
little. I was never little. I’m huge. The last
woman to break up with me, a self-described
“Malaysian-Chinese-American” who was so
beautiful that she asked me to please stop
telling her how beautiful she is, also told me
that my height is “freakish.” I remember her
standing in the doorway, the light outside like
a choir. I didn’t watch her walk to her truck.
I remember my father pulling into the ugly
gorgeous Green Bay streets and how I pointed
to an adult bookstore, saying I wanted to go
there. He said no. I said I was sick of children’s
literature. I wanted to read an adult book.
He said it wasn’t what I was thinking it was.
I asked what he meant. He didn’t laugh.
My mother looked uncomfortable. I didn’t
understand. Decades later, I bought a porn-
blocker for my computer. It didn’t work.
A friend of mine is a social worker. She said
that Google and Amazon have made billions
on porn, that the industry owns everything.
She’s dating a girl who, she says, used to be
in porn. I ask her about it one day, after I
just lost in Scrabble. She asks what I want to
know. I ask how much she made. She asks,
That’s it? That’s all you want to know?
I tell her I don’t know. I hear a toilet flush—
their upstairs neighbor. We know every time
he goes to the bathroom. Such a strange thing
to know. She tells me she made a thousand.
Total? No, each time. That’s it? She hates
my response. We hear the toilet flush again.
You Can’t Block the Porn
Ron Riekki
Mad
Tiyasha Kranha
Khakis
J.D.
Two Self Portraits
Nicholas O’Donnell
The Scar On My Head
Orest Yaslinskiy
Two Poems
Beatrice Ashton-Lelliot
Killing It
Andrew Tran
Thick
M.V. Preti
Two Poems
Vyarka Kozareva
Joey Song Loses
His Eyes
Jihoon Park
For Myself
Zalene Adler
Goons Romance
Jason Teal
New Smyrna
Claudia Lundahl
Somewhere Around Alva
Timothy Tarkelly
The Ant, the Seed,
the Watermelon in Me.
Wayland Tracy
What I Knew
Tyler Dempsey
February 2006
Rebecca Wittman
A Good Year
Tyler Dillow
Pretty Things Pretty Forever
Robert Warf
Four Poems
Dimitri Karakostas
Two Poems
John Anton Malinowski
Cornucopia
Seve Christian
Four Poems
Jonathan Bakken
Four Poems
Natalie Ann Armstrong
Two Poems
Karlos Rene Ayala
Pitiless Refuse
Austin Smith
Things She Did
Jordan Nunes
Ron Riekki
Mad
Tiyasha Kranha
Khakis
J.D.
Two Self Portraits
Nicholas O’Donnell
The Scar On My Head
Orest Yaslinskiy
Two Poems
Beatrice Ashton-Lelliot
Killing It
Andrew Tran
Thick
M.V. Preti
Two Poems
Vyarka Kozareva
Joey Song Loses
His Eyes
Jihoon Park
For Myself
Zalene Adler
Goons Romance
Jason Teal
New Smyrna
Claudia Lundahl
Somewhere Around Alva
Timothy Tarkelly
The Ant, the Seed,
the Watermelon in Me.
Wayland Tracy
What I Knew
Tyler Dempsey
February 2006
Rebecca Wittman
A Good Year
Tyler Dillow
Pretty Things Pretty Forever
Robert Warf
Four Poems
Dimitri Karakostas
Two Poems
John Anton Malinowski
Cornucopia
Seve Christian
Four Poems
Jonathan Bakken
Four Poems
Natalie Ann Armstrong
Two Poems
Karlos Rene Ayala
Pitiless Refuse
Austin Smith
Things She Did
Jordan Nunes