volume 14 number 2
by Charles Wuest
1. A Little Hush-Hush At The Ranch
Hosing down the onions I missed breakfast. The sky got brighter. The situation required a delicate touch. The cafeteria people here don’t like too much in the way of deviation, nor too much in the why.
I’m telling you this because embarrassment is the least of your problems. Whisper about improving the series of skill gradations and a little fly will seize you piecemeal, in delicate bites, until your idea-line has ceased.
It’s all about who’s listening to what. Right now—just look at those crafties in the sentry box, impassive and watchful, just for the sake of argument, and ask yourself, will another pile of rocks really make their book?
2. Susana Labanca
The bars of soap were wearing thin, we grouped at last under Queen Cream, and she worked the shell off her hard-boiled egg and leaned forward and said the solution
is in understanding where each line has to give. Naked in my bed I thought about the time I spent there, scampers, moods, cliffs, and bushes while the program
called for walking among the trees in indoor-outdoor shoes, plush to the touch. There is pleasure there, I guess, as if I knew it exactly, but soon I would be wiping off my glasses on the deck of a boat, barefoot and abandoned to that fox, flat water.