Today, October the Ninth, Having Just Read the Newspaper, the War Historian Writes a Poem to the Friend He Secretly Pines for on the Eve of What Is Merely the Latest in a String of Global Crises | Allison Shoemaker This morning they shook the ground in North Korea by splitting atoms. Last night an eyelash lay on your cheek, orphaned. Two worlds are intimate: The Nation of Things That Fall Apart, and The Republic of Places We Can’t See. The nape of the neck. The back of the knee. The effects of elemental transmutation, the sounds your stomach made when we skipped lunch to watch the news and worry. A seismic rumble. Last night I left the eyelash there. What choice else? It has been shown— molecules sense where there’s an ache. The distance, each coiled inch between my fingers and your flesh, burns, hums, an alarm for the heart, and a choice is made: fission or fusion. My body stung in all the places I didn’t touch you.  read about the author Contributors.htmlshapeimage_2_link_0
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commentary | poetry | fiction | chicago | autumn 2007  
Household Poisons | Thomas King It Begins when the Leaves Turn | Grace Wells The Intolerable Nature of Yearning | Katie Kidder Figure 2 | Lindsay Bell Egressive | Amy Groshek Kampala 2012 | Damian Dressick Today, October the Ninth | Allison Shoemaker This House | Edward Mc Whinney Contradiction | from the editor Reviews On the Contrary Archives | Search Sponsor a WriterPoisons.htmlBohreen.htmlYearning.htmlFigure.htmlEgressive.htmlKampala.htmlAutumn-2007.htmlContradiction-1.htmlReviews.htmlContrary.htmlArchives.htmlWritersFund.htmlshapeimage_6_link_0shapeimage_6_link_1shapeimage_6_link_2shapeimage_6_link_3shapeimage_6_link_4shapeimage_6_link_5shapeimage_6_link_6shapeimage_6_link_7shapeimage_6_link_8shapeimage_6_link_9shapeimage_6_link_10shapeimage_6_link_11shapeimage_6_link_12