: creation myth :

Joseph A. W. Quintela

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   again, the child is sick
   mother says the faucet spews death in sickness and in health
   under the bridge the stones are rough hewn, scented yellow,
   colored in piss
   you're too old to hide beneath her skirts
   you're too young to sleep beneath the bridge
   again, mother is crying
   on the seventh day, forget

: crevice sewn : stalks escape the jagged edge⁽ⁱⁱⁱ⁾ : abandon ill-conceived solitudes : meaning this : if you plant a slivered nail in muck and : wish : wish : wish : harness heart and lung : drag truth with an eye-gouged horse : then perhaps : but you : festooned in vestal blood : could only wish for skin^(v) : recklessly : wander ramshackle corridors⁽ⁱⁱ⁾ : comb nodes of spectral spine : read between the bullet wounds : lies : lies : lies are an adolescent wish⁽ⁱ⁾ : cities ferried upon the skiff : gaping holes where teeth : tongue : throat : silence : should abide^(vi) : would if not for this : window cut by knife : we : the unforgiving I : the blind foal : Lamarck's damn proof : strung between the moon's tectonic ribs : shifting in the ash strewn bone^(vii) : eyelashes trembling : wet : pendulum slung : spent : we are a lie in the throes of birth^(iv) :

Joseph A. W. Quintela writes. Poems. Stories. On Post-it-notes. Walls. Envelopes. Cocktail napkins. Anything he gets his hands on, really. He writes poetry on Twitter. Some people think that's cool. But, whatever. His work will (has) appear(ed) in Right Hand Pointing, Neon, Writers' Bloc (Rutgers), Rose & Thorn, and lines written with a razor. Actually, he wrote those lines with a battle axe. But, whatever. He got bored. So he started editing Short, Fast, and Deadly. Which is funny. Because he's none of these things.