Benjamin Goldberg
Church of the Pyromaniacs

Benjamin Goldberg - Church of the Pyromaniacs

Poetry
Benjamin Goldberg lives with his wife outside Washington, D.C. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Salt Hill, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Greensboro Review, Grist, The Southeast Review, A… Read more »
William Fargason
Egg Tooth

William Fargason - Egg Tooth

Poetry
William Fargason’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in New England Review, Grist, New Orleans Review, Bayou Magazine, Nashville Review, and elsewhere. He is currently a poetry MFA candidate at… Read more »
Matthew Sisson
Folly Literature

Matthew Sisson - Folly Literature

Poetry
Matthew Sisson's poetry has appeared in magazines and journals ranging from JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association, to the Harvard Review Online. He has been nominated for a Pushcart… Read more »
Janice Ko Luo
Mon Coeur

Janice Ko Luo - Mon Coeur

Poetry
Janice Ko Luo graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University in Los Angeles. She has been a Poetry Editor for the literary and art journal Lunch Ticket. She was selected for a… Read more »
Meg Hunter
Our Apollo

Meg Hunter - Our Apollo

Poetry
Meg Hunter is a Special Educator in Charles County, Maryland. She holds an M.S. in Special Education from Dowling College and a B.A. in English from the University of Maryland, where she lived in the… Read more »
Brandon Amico
Self-Portrait with Oncoming Storm

Brandon Amico - Self-Portrait with Oncoming Storm

Poetry
Brandon Amico is from New Hampshire. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Carolina Quarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Hunger Mountain, Sixth Finch, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. You… Read more »
Kate Peper
The Weight of a Bridge

Kate Peper - The Weight of a Bridge

Poetry
Kate Peper is a freelance designer and award-winning watercolor painter living in Marin County, California. Her poems have twice been nominated for a Pushcart and have appeared in the Cimarron Review,… Read more »

Mon Coeur

Janice Ko Luo

“Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” Magritte declares of the black floating object. I run around in circles without a head inside that crumbling chicken shack, where Nina Simone can’t stop singing Mississippi Goddam. Francesca Woodman knew the beauty of dilapidated buildings too, naked bodies in ruin. That peeling peach-marbled wallpaper blurring her bare shoulders, providing soft wings. Look for that which is not unclothed but clothed—her identifying marker. That cheap Mary Jane shoe worn by every peasant girl in China. It could have been me in another life carrying an ugly red flag with little yellow stars. Imagine something beating inside that black cloth shoe. It throbs with something else. In the grim subway with dirt linoleum floors, I watch various men grab silver poles and wonder how each of them grabs other things. Then there’s that man released from prison after 20 years for a crime he didn’t commit. Still feeling guilty for no reason, he says, “It’s the beauty not the ugly that hurts you.” In all sordid things, one must find beauty. Magritte found his mother drowned in the river with her thin white dress covering her head. Outside the NEW WORLD FETISH boutique, I drink half a bottle of Bordeaux in a brown paper bag and stare at a pretty nun in a rubber habit. It’s the sordid that will slay you. That box of delicate broken fingers found inside a random basement in the City. At the Medieval stone Cloisters a few stops from Harlem, each saint statue’s hands are missing. “Ceci n’est pas mon coeur,” I say. It just feels like it.

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