The spindly stalks creep out from the nexus of the composition like arachnid extremities. The pronounced compression of space pushes the roughly hewn roots into the forefront for the beholder’s contemplation. The sharp points and scraggly edges of the root system prevent easy entrance into the scene. Oller creates a kind of coconut Noli me tangere: we may look, but not touch.

Like those jellyfish that swell with future oxygen, / I live into my gender, balloon constantly rising

The man was his father. How could he be so disgusted by him? His mother, long dead, always told him: your father will outlive us all, but not before he makes us suffer as much as he wants to, and more.

A neighbor assures me not to worry when the dog eats / rabbit flesh flattened on the street. Uncooked bones / are not sharp enough to hurt, turn an animal inside out.

Jami Nakamura Lin is a Chicago-based writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Electric Literature, and Bat City Review, but you might know…

When I ask him what his favorite kinds of pretzels are, he says rods. I tell him those are better than sourdough, but nothing beats traditional. He asks me how I define “traditional” and before I answer he tells me it’s subjective, that it doesn’t matter anyways.

The Adriatic Highway, a ligament that holds the tectonic states together / A transparent field of magnetic vessels swaddling a crumbling desert / nosing the star-map a clan of deer migrate West / Sultry doe-eyed creature of darkness revolving around the metallic pole as a planet around its star in heat.

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