Atlanta
Sometimes it takes a six-hour drive to meet
another villain to understand why
you became one, too. Girl he used to beat,
consensually, becomes the one you cry
to, discrete, IM introduction: “I know
what it feels like to be his orphan.” Week
commiserating online while you grow
more sure your tenure, little one, is done. Weak
enough to say yes when she suggests you
should take a holiday, Atlanta — there’s
sex clubs. She knows what looks like love — your view
opened door, her pompadour, dark suit,
stare before she zips you in an obscene dress —
feel what remains of his latest princess.
Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Best of the Net & Rhysling nominated sonnet stalker from Pensacola. Her sonnets have appeared in journals like Glass, Yes, Five: 2: One, Isacoustic* and many more. She is the author of twelve books of poetry including Pink Plastic House (Maverick Duck Press), Candy Cigarette Womanchild Noir (The Hedgehog Poetry Press) and the forthcoming Flutter: Southern Gothic Fever Dream (TwistiT Press) and The Meadow (Apep Publications, 2020). Follow her on Twitter: (@lolaandjolie) and her website http://kristingarth.com
Banner Image “Pink Bouquet” by Robert Frede Kenter. Tweets at @frede_kenter
BURNING HOUSE PRESS 
An excerpt from Fields of Violence by Julia Madsen
From FIELDS OF VIOLENCE: A TRANSCRIPT OF A DOCUMENTARY ON THE ONGOING FARM CRISIS
FOREWORD
The necrotic underside of the history of the Farm Crisis lives on in the Heartland and in the mind of the landscape, whose pulsating synapses and rhizomes absorb nitrogen nourished by the prairie soil under the watchful eye of high harvest––a time of year of reaping that steals as much as it proffers, withholding the promise of a dream that never existed but did, at one time, grow faith. In another existence. Somewhere between the dream and the dead, blood red tinges the borders of everything. A woman and a man put their hands together like arrows pointed up toward some augury that will never come and when it doesn’t, they forgive the augur. Why? Continue reading “An excerpt from Fields of Violence by Julia Madsen” →
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