Feet by Susan Tepper

Come this season 

your feet, cracked

and worn down

cannot be traded for

corn or trinkets.

No such comaraderie

cross-legged

around low fires

this season.

In any bargain who would 

accept such feet?

You walked possibly 

the exact route

repeating 

year in / year out.

An unprepossessing

landscape—

‘til there wasn’t a pouch 

of fat on your body;

starved to unforgiving.

Bones creaked when bending

to rub your feet.

Here’s the thing: 

A time slot is

destined to be pre-paid.

Susan Tepper is the author of nine published books of fiction and poetry.  Her most recent titles are CONFESS (poetry published by Cervena Barva Press, 2020) and the road novel WHAT DRIVES MEN (Wilderness House Press, 2019).  Tepper has received many honors and awards.  She’s a native  ) New Yorker.  www.susantepper.com

guards by Tanya Rakh

the way the guards go up

and we cannot tell

anyone but you—

but you say we cannot 

tell you, either.

Tanya Rakh was born on the outskirts of time and space in a cardboard box. After extensive planet-hopping, she currently makes her home near Houston, Texas where she writes poetry, surrealist prose, and cross-genre amalgamations and works as a professional manuscript editor. Her poetry has appeared in journals including Danse Macabre, Literary Orphans, Yes, Poetry, and Miletus International Literature Journal and is featured in several issues of Alien Buddha e-zine. Her first poetry collection, Hydrogen Sofi, was published in 2019 by Hammer & Anvil Books.