Fall/Winter 2009-10
tom oristaglio
scott summers
cindy childress
tom rechtin
james b. nicola
debra rymer
doug draime
corey mesler
rebecca schumejda
chris crittenden
arlene ang
joey nicoletti
brad johnson
lorie allred
elizabeth kay
alexander russo
nissa lee
kenneth gurney
jessi lee gaylord
keith brighouse
ajay vishwanathan
ethel rohan
william "cully" bryant
julie steiner
Steiner Interview
by Alex Nodopaka
Jennifer VanBuren
Jai Britton
Alex Nodopaka
Patrick Carrington
Mannequin Envy in memory of poet and artist Douglas Gamrath
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Essa Élan Aja
Winter Melt Issue 2009
Clit°
I rejected sex for years!
Kept to my work. Worshiped my social calendar.
Perfected inconsequential sensuality; flirting with bartenders, janitors,
grocery cashiers.
Learned again how to sleep alone.
In the bath I would touch my clit, thinking,
"I'm happy but (my clit) [she] doesn't like me"
it was enough
until she left one afternoon
with my car keys and a map of Hollywood homes.
I'd spot her at the mall buying La Perla
catch her scent at Wilshire + Westwood
[Ay!]feel her heat pouring through this dusky desert metro.
I had become water in a glass. On the table. Undrunk.
Without her.
She returned to me unrulier than ever.
She rested on the pillow, heavy in the dark night,
dictating all things she would never again be:
no constellations,
wounds or bursts of cinnamon,
never once a bird
nor a falling flower,
not the defeated fleshy notes of any. gutted. song.
To Colonize
Even my fingertips will colonize you
manipulate your taut wondrous world,
convert every thought into restlessness
swollen with the hot gold lust of conquistadors
traveling ancient footsteps of Tenochtitlan, Palau.
Touch me.
I am the amazon from teeth to toes.
I have come to make you sleepless in this night.
Bali
We haven't fucked like this since
Bali
rained us in
for breakfast, lunch, dinner-
and in your mouth
my breasts were as giving as golden persimmons
while
we sank deep into our own humidity and
left the sheets looking like the surface of the moon.
Essa Élan Aja has appeared numerous times in Clean Sheets and other magazines as well as anthologized in books published by Beacon Press and Alyson Books. She can be reached at essaelan@hotmail.com.
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