by Charlotte Hamrick & Matt Dennison
The ghost piano swells in the clitoral distance,
nibbling all the slop excellence of brief and simple rites.
—What strange beasts. What odd loves.
What excellent players. Some light,
some comedy, some candy—
whiskey, chocolate and your
fine little arms are the
linchpins on which
this tale spins, dreaming
from the waist up,
both sides of my voice
farsickening the sky. Animosity
spills like grains of pepper, a grey dove
nestling in the porch fern. Only the illusion
of peace, the orange of the sunset—a missile
that pierces my heart’s penalty knife will do.
But I am the beautiful one.
Charlotte Hamrick’s creative work has been published in numerous online and print journals including Emerge Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, Reckon Review and New World Writing. She is Creative Nonfiction Editor for The Citron Review. She lives in New Orleans with her husband and a menagerie of rescued pets.
Matt Dennison is the author of Kind Surgery, from Urtica Press (Fr.) and Waiting for
Better, from Main Street Rag Press. His work has appeared in Rattle, Bayou Magazine,
Redivider, Natural Bridge, The Spoon River Poetry Review and Cider Press Review,
among others. He has also made short films with Michael Dickes, Swoon, Marie Craven
and Jutta Pryor.
A-Minor 