by Joe Engel I rub the refurbished chair I sit on for spirit. My cell phone sleeps. Across the room a woman’s story unwinds  like witnessing a flood  breech the foundation  of someone else’s home. But there is a crow on my shoulder- the crow I ignore. My ear is just carrion. Some nights my…

By Joe Engel The road crew is knee deep in a mirage. Silvery waves rise from the heat they can’t see, heat which raises sweat from their skin and causes them to draw frequently from the ice water in their thermoses, whose saintly clanking seems to descend from somewhere other than these miles of assigned…

by Joe Engel It was July 4th, and Lisa leaned against the fuel door of Jim’s Chevy Nova. It was stalled on the shoulder of highway H.  She stared down the flow of traffic, but didn’t wave them over.  They swerved wide as they passed.  It was a dry summer.  The hot wind pushed her…

By Joe Engel Seeing your name, Jason, etched in the red brick below me I recall you most in the summer of 1984. You so trustworthy, so good,  I allowed you into our fort, made of branches in a half circle against a fence, like a teepee, to see the collection of magazines my neighbor…

by Joe Engel I’ve heard, one mopping a tile floor can achieve a state of Zen. Wet strokes,  a certain repetition. But in this work my elevation stays tied in the boots on my feet. The words “hurry” and “Zen” only fuse for long distance runners. My awareness is drawn into the air return from…

By Joe Engel I choose an alarm clock to bully my feet to the floor every morning, out of blanket and bed knowing the furless cat in this February. Hurried to hurry in the dark  where the moon hangs orange often to signal any fortune,  before it goes under, any ease in the weather at…

by Joe Engel I turn off the lights in this bedroom to float like a branch. My limbs water-log and I slowly sink. Cars pass outside while drivers glide along the black channels of asphalt, thoughts ushered from point A, to point B, hurried to where they can uncage the poor treatment they received at…

Here is a little poem I wrote about the curiosity I had over a butterfly which appeared one afternoon in the middle of summer, dead, just outside our screen door. Its wings were spread to show its bright pattern. I don’t know how it died, and it led me to wonder about insects dying in…

by Joe Engel Who often had bruises blooming on her her arms, rouge over bruises on her face drives  as though the road grinds through her. Her hair wisps like tail pipe smoke in the open window. The lines on her face ask the highway  to last a whole journey. There was a man  who…

Here is a story about meeting neighbors for the first time. By Joe Engel The rocks embedded in the top step of the porch to my duplex were getting uncomfortable on my ass, and I wanted to make something happen. It was Friday, and my divorce was finalized a few days before. But there was…