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1.

My clone was that adolescent friend

who would come over after school

every day but became uber-popular

in high school and then experimented

with drugs and later went off the grid

but now is back in town trying to get

their shit together and we have coffee

and catch up one afternoon before

night classes at the community college.


2.

I have grown resentful of my clone

for writing the groundbreaking novel

that I lack the audacity and discipline

to author myself, but then not caring

enough to attempt to get it published.


3.

My clone was in an indie band.

Mildly successful with a cult following

in the post-Napster, pre-iPod era.

Even toured several Midwestern cities

and paid off student loans with the proceeds.

Later, in downtown Des Moines, my clone

quit abruptly over creative differences

while claiming they penned all the band’s

cliched songs. It may have been the truth,

but it was bad form. Afterward, neither

my clone nor the talentless remainder

of the group found anything near their

original success. Post bygones, they do

get together, occasionally, for random

one-offs at dive bars – but only after

a debt collector or ex-wife has called

one of them demanding payments.


4.

My clone’s inner circle is an exclusive

nightclub. It’s not that no one can get inside—

it’s just that you need to be on the list.


5.

My clone did a ton of self-work to foster

personal growth while embarking on

many journeys, literal and metaphorical,

to arrive here. My clone squandered its

stamina while going the distance and has

been heaving for breath ever since

but remains focused on the finish line.

After their glow-up, my clone endured

eye rolls and sideways glances from haters.

It’s hard work being so well-adjusted,

but if my clone did it, then you can, too.


6.

My clone represents an advanced form

of sentient technology from a dystopian

future, and they will singe your thoughts

if you try to read their mind. Be careful.


7.

My clone doesn’t care much about

what you want. My clone doesn’t care

much about what I want, either.


8.

My clone has a love child that I kindly

clothe, feed, and watch over whenever

my clone feels a bit too downhearted

or distracted to care. My clone’s bastard

is hardheaded like me, so I give them

heavy-handed life advice while playing

catch in the backyard, hugging them

after they misjudge the trajectory

of my cut fastball, touching their bruises

gently and chanting it's going to be it’s going to be

okay as they cry through their pain


 as they cry through their pain.

Adrian Potter


Adrian S. Potter, winner of the 2022 Lumiere Review Prose Award, writes in Minnesota when he’s not busy silently judging your beer selection and record collection. Potter is the author of three collections of poetry/prose/hybrid work, including the recent And the Monster Swallows You Whole (Stillhouse Books) and Field Guide to the Human Condition (CW Books).

There is only this you need to believe. We are smaller

and greater than our bodies. We are not above them.

They cover us and we in turn surround them.


Sometimes when we shrink inside, unable to make our

appendages work, we are children wearing our father’s shirts.

We're not born knowing how to re-inflate once our selves


have been diminished. To shrink inside for good, to lose

completely the ability to engage, is to fall from the mercy

of our own grace. When body and brain consider the spirit


at fault, trust is a natural concern. Beyond even big

mistakes, it’s more serious not to be there at all. Moving

forward, possibly compensating for lack of resolve, what are


our options, within the rules, for digging in, not allowing

our basic selves to be pulled along like empty sleeves?

We're not born knowing. We learn if it’s clear what to do.


Scott Davidson


Scott Davidson grew up in Montana, worked for the Montana Arts Council as a Poet in the Schools and – after most of two decades in Seattle – lives with his wife in Missoula. He’s been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry and the GE Young Writers Award for literary essay. His poems have appeared in Southwest Review, Hotel Amerika, Poets, Painters, Composers, Terrain. org, Bright Bones: Contemporary Montana Writing, and the Permanent Press anthology Crossing the River: Poets of the Western United States.


My mom calls me and says she forgot how to use the remote and is beyond frustrated because

she can’t watch her favorite weekly show. This call seems unusual but at the same time isn’t

out of the realm of possibilities. We struggle through the process and end in victory. I try calling

my mom the next week and she answers. She says she tried to call me earlier but couldn’t

remember how. I know she’s getting older but this doesn’t seem right. At 64 has dementia

already set in? I go to visit her, and she seems pleasant, but when I ask her my birthday, she

says she can’t remember. Something is wrong.

I take her to the doctor. He asks if there’s been carbon monoxide poisoning. Not to our

knowledge, and then he says a prayer for her and tells her to go to the hospital and get a CAT

scan. We go, and immediately they think she had a stroke. They do some tests and say we

have good and bad news. The good news is she didn’t have a stroke, the bad news is we

found a brain tumor. Not only is this a brain tumor, it’s cancerous, glioblastoma. A particularly

aggressive cancer. The doctor says she could live maybe a year if we do a craniotomy right

now.

After the surgery things appear better, until they don’t. Within 3 months she’s on home hospice.

She’s forgotten who I am, who she is and withered into this person I don’t recognize. I’m sitting

at her bedside eating a taco and take a picture of a hummingbird that was drinking from her

bird feeder. A few moments later, mom takes her last breath. I say to her boyfriend, I think she’s

dead. The nurse comes in and says, "Look at her face, it looks like she’s smiling."


Travis Park


Travis Park is an emerging poet from a disadvantaged background. Their poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Their work was recently included in the Indiana Art Commissions InVerse Archive. You can see more of their poems on Instagram @travisparkpoetry.



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