Blood Orange Review Volume 5.2

Camp Fires by Scott Gray

Illustration

Scott Gray | bio

Fiction

Jonathan Starke | bio

My husband says he’s leaving me but it’s not because I’m a mannequin. I watch him pull his shirts from hangers and place them on the bed and fold them all neatly in a row. He tells me the love is gone now, that he couldn’t get back any of it if he tried. I tell him that’s nonsense, but he keeps packing anyway... [more]

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Arlene Ang | bio

And God said let there be economy class passengers—

the kind who are served hot meals
to keep them in their place. They’re allowed

to brush against the business class
on their way in, but remain in the dark

about exactly who climbs the stairs
to first class. He created plastic knives ... [more]

Brently Johnson | bio

The Artist’s Father

In the moments between watching my son
draw a picture of a turtle without a shell

and thinking what a fine poem it would make
to write about my son drawing a picture of a turtle without a shell

he’s added a purple squirm of a tail as well as a fifth leg ... [more]

On Hearing Bad News
She called today and

Said they were on the way
To the hospital

Said for me to keep the lord by my bed
Said Nothing
I could do ... [more]

Disruption by Scott Gray

Volume 5.2 | Summer 2010

Editor’s Notes—Literary Crush

During the compilation of this issue of Blood Orange Review, I must confess: I developed crushes on the writers we selected to publish. I might have even googled a few. Having read and re-read and argued for and pored over their work, I already had an affection for their writing. But as their bios came in and I read their answer to our standard question— “What keeps you moving forward as a writer?”—I found myself drawn toward them. It was like finding out that someone beautiful also has a really great personality.... [more]

Nonfiction

Mark Beaver | bio

Roadkill

December: bitter cold, two in the morning. Stuck in the suburbs with nothing to do on a Friday night, we cruised the loop around our town a half-dozen times. We passed the strip with the bright street lights and neon gas stations that shone like alien saucers in the night; the Taco Bell where that greasy night manager slipped cigarettes to the teenage girls who hung out in the parking lot; the Dunkin Donuts where the policemen chewed Boston Crèmes and flirted with the Mexican women working the night shift. Lap after monotonous lap, there it was again: that dead cat lying in the middle of the road.... [more]

Whitney Dibo | bio

Four Down: To Caress. Six Letters, Starting with an S

When my grandfather had his stroke, over 1,876,000 Washington Post crossword puzzle clues poured out of his ear and onto his pillow. I get that number by multiplying sixty years of crossword puzzling times six days a week—he always skipped the Sunday puzzle for reason that it was, and still is, absurdly hard to complete—multiplied by 120 clues per puzzle (on average). I’m even willing to concede that my grandfather could have forgotten 50 percent of the all the clues he painstakingly figured out during his tenure as a Washington Post crossword devotee, but that would still make his stroke the thief of at least 936,000 hard earned clues.... [more]

Poetry

Shimmy Boyle | bio

I Believe in the Existence of Strawberries

There are turtles sleeping in a garden somewhere
While candles burn on top of their shells
And an old record plays the blues ... [more]

I Think Bees Have Got the Right Idea

Just imagine
That your job
Is to rub your entire body
On a flower ... [more]

Scot Erin Briggs | bio

Not for Identification

His rifle scope bears JN8:12
for the light of the world

She remembers dancing is all about
resistance ... [more]

Target Practice

You hand me the gun / camera / baby
and I have to remember where to rest my
arms / eyes / fingers
up and away from the
lens / trigger / body ... [more]

John D. Fry | bio

Oneiromancy, Late Afternoon

there is a little boy

with a bird
for a heart

looking out the window ... [more]

Aseem Kaul | bio

Trumpet Solo

It begins in the lungs:
the sadness, the accumulated weight
of hurt’s seasons, the way
a man’s breath must balance
his memories against his ghosts ... [more]

Jacqueline Lyons | bio

Not a Vague Province

Where I am very early in the morning
and sometimes late at night

Waking to the quietest hum, no matter
where the door, chair, light from somewhere

How often do you come here?

Every time I do (dance, dance, dance, drink, drink)

... [more]