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"Holga in Their Sleep" by Tricia Louvar

"On Seeing Coworkers in the Light of Day" by Victor Koran

​He found me where he shouldn't
               where he shouldn't be
With his wife
With his cart
               in the supermarket
I saw him first
               looked the other way
The other way down the wrong aisle
               down the aisle he rounded
Rounded with his eyes     wide
               like a maw     like surprise
               like a tractor beam     like hypnosis
     my legs moved     lockstep like a lemming
He was mythic     coworker in the wild
               containment free
a beast
     And the smell
the ozone      copper smell
mix of sparks and dust
               blood and sweat
               concrete staleness
     Like the goatman
     Like the wendigo
the rotten stench of walking corpses
     even his shapeshifting couldn't hide
And as he reeled me in
     That fraud
     Changeling
           that could consume my soul in that aisle
     I feared
               his true form
That any second
               girders and tarps
               forklifts and palettes
       stacks of racks and orders
might burst from his chest

Victor Koran is a 25 year old insurance call center representative with a background in industrial labor in the Ohio River Valley. He writes to bring a voice to the disenfranchised blue collar workers of the Rust Belt. His work is forthcoming in the Cobalt Review.

​Tricia Louvar lives in the Pacific Northwest and studied journalism, poetry, aesthetics, and documentary photography in college and beyond. She works in publishing as a visual artist and writer. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Brevity, Orion Online, Zyzzyva, and more.  tricialouvar.com

Artist Statement:  At a Saturday kaffeeklatsch, after splitting a piece of banana bread, I am the one nibbling pieces of its raw sugar left behind on the plate. Such an instantsummarizes my artistic impulses of focusing on the leftovers and the overlooked. I investigate the human condition and its relationship to impermanence with digital and analog tools.
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