By E. Kristin Anderson

Battle a Man

You begin in birds and beasts,
bewitched as shown, very much alive.

It spits unwary, this control. Your easier route.

Bony, you’ll hit a door, proceed whole
that walk already a swing.

Strategy blows down on you.

His monster: your bridges swarming
with green. Fading memories.

Move, grow dim, fade out—
the sharp tongue is the jump, just ahead.

Fall away, higher when both move
in transformation.

This is an erasure poem. Source material: “ActRaiser.” Nintendo Power, Volume 31, December 1991, pages 26-29.

I scream

It’s a good thing—
this high-voltage walk
across fancy build.

You pen toxic steps
over close tabs, make
the free float                        your way.

In the hole,                          leave the wall,
the hill,
home.
This familiar time
can’t set some
fancy, cunning
plan.

Start the time,
the path.                               Clear.

This is an erasure poem. Source material: “Lemmings,” Nintendo Power Volume 37, June 1992, pages 12-13.

Anderson is the author of seven chapbooks including A GUIDE FOR THE PRACTICAL ABDUCTEE (Red Bird Chapbooks 2014) PRAY, PRAY, PRAY: Poems I wrote to Prince in the middle of the night (Porkbelly Press, 2015), 17 DAYS (ELJ Publications) ACOUSTIC BATTERY LIFE (ELJ 2016), FIRE IN THE SKY (Grey Book Press 2016), and SHE WITNESSES (dancing girl press, 2016). Anderson’s nonfiction anthology, DEAR TEEN ME, based on the popular website, was published in October of 2012 by Zest Books (distributed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and Anderson’s next anthologies, HYSTERIA: Writing the Female Body and COME AS YOU ARE (a 90s pop culture anthology) are forthcoming. Anderson worked at The New Yorker magazine, has a B.A. in Classics from Connecticut College and is currently a poetry editor for Found Poetry Review and also recently took a position working on special projects at ELJ. Anderson has published poetry in many magazines worldwide, including Juked, Hotel Amerika, [PANK], Asimov’s Science Fiction, and Cicada and has work forthcoming in The Boiler and The Indianola Review. Anderson grew up in Maine, lives in Austin, Texas, and blogs at EKristinAnderson.com.

Art: “Ego Integrity vs. Despair” by Wendy Ritchy

Wendy Ritchey has worked for years as an Art Therapist and Licensed Clinical Counselor with people dealing with trauma including work with military veterans. She currently writes and makes art in the Chicagoland area.