Features: Barry Ballard, Steve deFrance, C.K. Edgeware, Lisa Flaherty, Arthur Gottileb, Andrew Grossman, Daniel A. Harris, Karla M. Houston, Megan Jones, Lee Kitzis, Arthur Winfield Knight, Dudley Laufman, Gerald Locklin, B.Z. Niditch, Donna Pucciani, Charles P. Ries, Tanya Rucosky Noakes, Kevin Sweeney, Don Winter.

Read our Silty rave reviews. Sample poems from Issue Eight:
 

States of Matter

megan jones

“Opacity gives way. Transparency is the mystery.”
	—James Richardson

i only noticed how closely we reflected
		the states of matter because i was a
chemistry major that fall,
	that grey season when we combined the
			wrong elements and
		it blew up in our faces

Perhaps i should have suspected
		dangerous Alchemy when the
	best lab exercise all term was
			letting the match
		burn my thumbnail to
the quick

		Everyone else was calculating
	our half-life but you,
you were opaque
		my white-knuckled, blond god
	and i joined the swarm of sleepwalking
women
		because
you always told the truest lies

	and eyes will pass over what the
heart wishes dead

	i came close to cracking the Code of our
		false chemistry		but you always
stopped me with
	bulging eyes and pants
your pupils floating
			obscenely in the milk Broth
meeting my melon-rind eyes

		And with the smell of love still
lingering in twisted sheets the

		Liquid quicksilver
	measuring the fever
			under my tongue
	congealed to dregs
the small
		solid Remainders,
what’s left over after dividing the body’s pain

	Our last bonds were vaporized when
			i remarked
“this simply cannot be what
			i’ve torn my clothes off for”

As the blinding transparent
	gas enveloped us it was
			all over but the Shouting
	and the suffocating fog cleared only
		after you
slammed the door

	Someday i would like a love
thick as that mushroom cloud
	but not with pity
 

Bonanza

arthur winfield knight

I could never suspend
my disbelief
watching Bonanza.
Adam was too cool,
dressed in black,
and I couldn’t imagine
any adult being called
Little Joe. I thought
Hoss looked stupid
with a ten-gallon hat,
and their father
reminded me of mine,
always giving
unwanted advice.
Adam dropped out
to become a doctor,
and years later
Little Joe became
an angel. Hoss died,
and dad got a job
selling dog food.
Now it all seems
too real. I watch reruns
every Saturday,
and my wife and I visited
the Ponderosa Ranch,
high above Tahoe.
Tourists took pictures
of the fictional graves
of fictional characters.
A year later,
everything was gone—
bulldozed. You could buy
a small condo
for a million. My wife
wondered what happened
to the graves.

Gender Studies

kevin sweeney

Saturday my shorts feel wet; in the men’s room I’m covered in blood.
It’s a hemorrhoid, but the ER physician’s assistant puts an adjective
with gravitas in front of it. Wednesday Molly and I take Jamie to dinner

to celebrate being our student then getting accepted at Smith.
By now I’m wearing panty liners (with wings) my wife has bought
me as I’m still leaking and won’t see the surgeon until next week.

Our waiter mentions his “hubby,” and we wonder if he’s been to Massachusetts
since the court decision; then Molly and Jamie get into it about gay marriage.
Molly says epigrammatically, “...but it ain’t marriage!”

Jamie says she’s missing the point. I excuse myself to go check my pad:
still spotting but no serious blood. Back at the table I say something
pseudo intellectual about time eroding the temporality of custom, blah blahing
like a bald guy with pony tail, fl owing shirt, & beatific smile. As we walk
Jamie to her truck, Molly asks if Smith is going to make her a lesbian.

Jamie’s had male and female lovers so it isn’t entirely up to Smith.
“No, I want some penis,” she responds. Next I walk Molly to her car
and she tells me about her London trip, a fibroid tumor,

bathtub water turning red, so she asked her husband,
“Jesus, how much blood can one person lose?” and he said the body
kept making more. She explains that until menopause the question

“Is there blood on my dress?” has the urgency of a border check point.
Finally I walk to my car alone, a man who doesn’t need protection,
and resolve to change my pad soon as I get home.