After If I Loved You

by Don Schaeffer

If I could betray you
life would make sense.

I could spend my days
empty in all the places

where things can fill them
with frightened titters

and come home
scared and fresh to a cold bed.

I would be off to the far vacuums
if I could betray you.

for the drunken failure he was

by Justin Hyde


Justin Hyde lives in Iowa, where he attempts to rehabilitate criminals. He can be contacted at jjjjhyde@yahoo.com.





my dad never once
missed a day
of work.

that is more
than i can claim
on another fake sick-day
sitting on a beanbag chair
in the downtown library
with carver
and two
flasks.

if we had
anything to do with each other
old man
i'd drink you
under a bar-stool

i'd tell you
i remember
how sometimes on the way out the door
to the bar
you'd grab my wrist
just so
making my hand
slam shut

the ten bucks
i stole
from mom's purse
to buy that spring-loaded
forearm-strengthener
from dan kamn

thinking maybe
if i ever could
open my hand up
you'd want to
stick around.

On Golden Pond

by Don Schaeffer


She clings to
the wool of his sweater,
grasping to prevent him from

falling away. She hangs on to
the familiarity of his breast
rising in breath,

the beat of his heart.
It isn't time
for you to leave.

Why do I cry only in movies
when there is so little kindness
and such a need for tears?

Football

Rainy Day

A Career of Burglarproof Doors

by Don Schaeffer


It's been over a year
since I closed the grey steel
burglarproof doors,
felt the magnetic eraser

zap away memories of what I did
that every day
drove me further from
kind voices and good deeds.

And, I left the building
without grace. Now, the judges
are all on the other side of the wall,
among the forgotten.