With technical dexterity
the Firm has labored to delouse
imprudent investments.
When a deadline lapses
Management fashions a scapegoat
from disposable contact lenses.
The only compensation is
the cafeteria’s green leaf lettuce
and a self-administered neck massage
in this catacomb of ringtones,
in this suite full of gases
akin to genuine air.
From the Board comes a directive
to beguile, excise, or redirect
regulatory zeal.
With the past walled off
from the SEC
and the present growing
an opaque legal skin,
all attention turns
to the future:
the evening chaos
of the parking lot
and its troubled plots of grass.
Alan Elyshevitz is a poet and fiction writer whose collection of stories, The Widows and Orphans Fund, was published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press. In addition, he has published three poetry chapbooks, most recently Imaginary Planet (Cervena Barva). He is a two-time recipient of a fellowship in fiction writing from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. https://aelyshevitz.ink.
ISSUE THIRTEEN: Ye, Smelly Tsar
Ashanti Anderson
Goddam
Alan Elyshevitz
BLDG A, STE 4-22
Deidre O’Connor
Vision at a Dublin Airport Hotel
Claire Scott
The Morning After
Daniel Lasell
Above What's Under
Chey Davis
The Indictment
Hilary Sideris
Park
John Rodzvilla
Then Bring It Double (12 & 35)
Kathleen McClung
After the Election
Matthew W. Schmeer
Disturbing the Peace