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Picture
Against Light

You say the loose 
acupuncture of gravel 

feels like a million 
fingertips of rain. 

Our backs starched
to the sidewalk, faces

sideways to the metallic 
burn of folding chairs 

in the street, each 
its own aubade.

You point a finger 
down a mountain,

cut it open. 
A small tornado 

of fireflies clicking 
into stars. You draw 

your name behind 
them, say there is 

nothing this world 
can’t grow back. 

No petal shreds 
unable of a paper 

necklace. No soil
we can’t rub between

our gums. We take 
another slug off 

an unlabeled bottle
and spit out fountains. 

We hold the cold 
murder of each other’s 

hands. In this dissolving 
dark you say you could die 

and mean it. Your mouth
moves to the corners

without words. You
stand up, stare down 

the morning, eyes 
flaring like knives.




Philip Schaefer is the author of two collaborative chapbooks with the poet Jeff Whitney. Smoke Tones is forthcoming from Phantom Limb (2015), and Radio Silence was selected by Black Lawrence Press as the Fall 2014 Black River Competition winner (2016). Individual poems are out or forthcoming in Forklift Ohio, DIAGRAM, Sonora Review, Fourteen Hills, H_NGM_N, alice blue, RHINO, Columbia Poetry Review, Spork, BOAAT, and Whiskey Island among others. He tutors and tends bar at a craft distillery in Missoula, Montana, where he received his MFA from the University of Montana.

​John Hardesty is a 35 year professional driver, amateur photographer, wheeler dealer and part time petunia grower. He's been married to Audra for 14 years and lives in Rapid City, South Dakota. He also makes a pretty good sandwich.
Picture
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