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Spring 2008
VanBuren's picks:
Antonia Clark
Brad Johnson
Dale McLain
Roger Pfingston
Richard Rippon
John Anderson
Cristina Baptista
Cynthia Brackett-Vincent
Michael Brownstein
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Alison Eastley
Brent Fisk
David Fraser
Krikor der Hohannesian
Amy MacLennan
Lisa Markowitz
Damon McLaughlin
Micki Myers
Roger Pfingston
Heather Schimel
Rachel Stewart
Lafayette Wattles
Matt Alberhasky
Margaret Fieland
Robert Johnson
Willie Smith
Alex Nodopaka
Jennifer VanBuren
Jai Britton
Patrick Carrington
Download is still free.
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Cristina Baptista
Spring 2008
On the Subway Train
people read books with names
like Thong on Fire,
which makes me hope that she isn’t wearing it
when it bursts into flames.
Did it spontaneously combust?
Did she get too close to the barbecue?
Did a jealous woman
or a curious boy
take an innocent match to her skin to see
what it could do,
what she could do?
Was it a “she”?
I wonder what it felt like,
what it smelled like,
if the fabric was 100% cotton
or some synthetic imitation
cut to enhance a woman’s assets
and if she paid a price worthy
of burning a hole
in her pocket.
The Pedestal Sink
I found you in the bathroom
committing that unforgivable crime.
With all your heavy heaves and groans,
you both had sunken through the tiled floor.
I found you, filth
caught in flaking grout.
The bowels of the water pipes were sighing
with your efforts.
The mirror fogged before the shower ran.
The pedestal sink
is her long, tapered leg,
the smooth white
thigh climbing
towards that single moment,
raised skyward
as she lays on her back and gives
herself up to the room, the world,
and you.
You crush down upon her
somewhere between ceiling and floor,
your transparency smothering,
and I stand between you both—
center of the room.
Center of the act.
Caught.
After leaving behind a very suburban lifestyle in New England a few years ago, Cristina J. Baptista became a somewhat tentative urban dweller. She now lives in New York City, where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in English Literature at Fordham University. Her literary entanglements include stints as a news reporter, fiction writer, poet, and editorial assistant of medical textbooks. She has also presented scholarly work on T.S. Eliot and Stevie Smith’s writings.
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"I didn't do it"
Alex Nodopaka
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