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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022

Heather June Gibbons

Let's Pretend


Let’s pretend this is the best song ever
crank it up and pretend we’re tourists
in shorts with maps, and in love
 
let’s pretend that kiss was an accident
blame it on boozy excitement
let’s pretend we’re Italian and stroll
 
la passeggiata on the Via del Corso
let’s pretend my cousin in Idaho
doesn’t have guns plural, pretend
 
we’re in labor and push, pretend
the alert wasn’t amber and the lost
child was found alive and safe
 
hiding under her bed, pretending
let’s pretend we’re rich and thin
and slouch laconically on a balcony
 
let’s pretend our ears don’t burn
nod yes with a mouthful of rare beef
dab tears of contentment, pretend
 
we are a happy family of four
and it’s bath time, then bedtime
read a story about ourselves
 
as rabbits and squirrels who live
in thatched-roof cottages with
secret passageways, let’s pretend
 
our secrets make us interesting
let’s pretend we don’t remember
let’s pretend we remember everything
 
what’s that smell?  It wasn’t us
the error module does not recognize
the error, let’s pretend we are
 
who we say we are, that we wave
at mayors in parades and always
call back our moms, this works best
 
when we’re unbearably sad
this isn’t fun anymore
so what, pretend that it is
 
and that we understand Twitter
and tailgating and love ourselves
even half as much as we should
 
let’s pretend that pretending is
different than lying and we
don’t see a black Mercedes
 
circling the block and this
waterfall is not powered
by electricity, we are not
 
powered by electricity,
pretend this dead-end is
not the real-deal end.

Anthem


Every pop song is just another song
about California, the waves, yeah
the waves, kids in the boom-boom
room shaking ass in the smoke
 
machine smoke like they’re dancing
in a gold cage, dudes singing along
and bobbing their heads in midlife
crisis cars like they’re all alone
 
in traffic, blonde girls bouncing
on dorm room beds vogueing
a looping dumbshow on Vine
for faraway boys with lathery
 
torsos, and the chorus goes
hi-lo blowpop shuga-shuga shake--
every club song is lonely, is a song
about longing generally, every
 
song about California dreaming
is sad the way a Solo cup rolling
on its side under a palm tree is
and neon blinking Palms Read Here
 
is just another way to say take me
to the bridge, let that big 4/4
box store beat build to the bridge
which always takes you back
 
to the same chorus, surge of blood
away, away from the brain,
let me come back to beats like
little boxes where I can have all
 
the big feelings, me, always
with the big, stupid feelings,
and the kids jumping on beds
in a scream-along, they have
 
all the feelings, and boys with
the spins holding their heads,
they have all the feelings, flare
guns shooting off for anyone,
 
anonymous, interchangeable
as bodies on the dance floor,
predictable as let’s stay for
just one more as though
 
that would ever be enough,
we’ll never have to come down
to the verse, that old story,
so much explaining, just
 
let the beat drop and the vocoder
vocals soar, dance so close
to the speaker the bass hurts
our kidneys, so loud we can’t
 
even hear what the singer
is saying, like you only
live once doesn’t also
mean that you are dying.


Sore Song


Hey you, tune in that sonar.  Come on down here
with your fanged kiss, bow rosined and held aloft,
 
ascot crooked but rakishly so.  How I’ve missed
scanning the horizon for you, wary of parallax--
 
decadent, the way it screws with the curves. 
I need your thumbprint on me in glitter or in ash. 
 
I looked for you in bulk bins of star anise,
in the creases of bus seats, in strange twangs
 
and interstate clovers, mistook you for other
pangs and baubles, and lay awhile panting
 
in your shadow, laid wait in stairwells
and in the body’s many clefts, whispered
 
for you, parched, once thought I saw you
through a guitar pick’s tortoiseshell, once
 
caught a glimpse of the hem of your robe. 
I sensed you with my high-powered sensor.
 
I orbited you, I probed.  And now I see your
massive eye blink against the bars of the cage
 
as my vessel pulls closer, risking burn up for data.




--
Heather June Gibbons is the author of the chapbook Flyover (Q Ave Press, 2012), and her poems have appeared widely in literary journals, including Blackbird, Boston Review, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, jubilat, The Laurel Review, and West Branch. A graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has received fellowships and awards from the Vermont Studio Center, the Prague Summer Program, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Heather teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University.

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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Masthead
  • Submit
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Submit Here
  • Features
  • Interviews
  • Book Reviews
  • Previous Issues
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022