Lucky 13th

The Sand Canyon Review @ Crafton Hills College is now accepting submissions for their 2009 issue. Please keep in mind the following guidelines:

– All work must have your name, address and phone number attached to the piece.
– Written work may be no longer than 10 pages in length.
– Poetry must be limited to 40 lines.
– All artwork is limited to 3 entries per person.

Submit your work to SCRsubmissions@gmail.com, subject header: SCR submissions

The city is swimming in glitter (seriously: someone dropped about a half pound in the entryway, and it’s been tracked up and down the whole building) and all the hoochies and lonelyhearts are out in their micro-minis and clunky big shoes. Too bad it’s pouring out, and their hair is soon going to be a raveled mass of sticky hairspray and ick, but c’est la vie. One for the road, then, and happy hunting, everyone.

Superbly Situated

by Robert Hershon

you politely ask me not to die and i promise not to
right from the beginning—a relationship based on
good sense and thoughtfulness in little things

i would like to be loved for such simple attainments
as breathing regularly and not falling down too often
or because my eyes are brown or my father left-handed

and to be on the safe side i wouldn’t mind if somehow
i became entangled in your perception of admirable objects
so you might say to yourself: i have recently noticed

how superbly situated the empire state building is
how it looms up suddenly behind cemeteries and rivers
so far away you could touch it—therefore i love you

part of me fears that some moron is already plotting
to tear down the empire state building and replace it
with a block of staten island mother/daughter houses

just as part of me fears that if you love me for my cleanliness
i will grow filthy if you admire my elegant clothes

i’ll start wearing shirts with sailboats on them

but i have decided to become a public beach an opera house
a regularly scheduled flight—something that can’t help being
in the right place at the right time—come take your seat

we’ll raise the curtain fill the house start the engines
fly off into the sunrise, the spire of the empire state
the last sight on the horizon as the earth begins to curve


Robert Herson, “Superbly Situated” from How to Ride on the Woodlawn Express. Copyright © 1985 by Robert Hershon.

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