HOOT Online, Issue 3, December 2011 – Flash Fiction, Poetry, Memoir

STOPPING BY THE COFFEE SHOP AFTER THE THEATRE

by Caroline Zarlengo Sposto

[audio:http://www.hootreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Stopping-By-Coffee.mp3|titles=Stopping By Coffee]



A pair of hipster lovebirds pose in vintage clothes.

All of nineteen they know the scene

and dig the vibe that marks the tribe

who text and talk of indie rock,

ironic views and new tattoos.

He shared his bleak philosophy

while sipping tea.

She sighed and gazed,

moved and amazed

then sweetly kissed her nihilist.

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INCOMPATIBILITY

by Nick Sanford The man on the shoreline noticed a woman beneath an umbrella and thought he might like to

marry her someday. She had long black hair and feathery eyelashes. And dimples. Would you like to take a swim with me? he asked, captivated by the smoothness of her skin, the

crookedness of her nose. If I go in the water I will fall apart, she said, wondering if this man would be the one to bind her

finger with a band of gold. How big would the diamond be? She asked: Would you like to take a walk with me in the pasture, instead? The daisies are

beautiful. If my feet touch grass I will grow roots, the man said, and I’ll never be able to move again. They both said: Very well then; it’s been a pleasure. They bid each other farewell. And neither shed a tear. f

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A NEW POEM (for John Steen)

by Stephen Ross

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You are right. What we

Call poetry is friendship’s

Way of securing the leash

So you don’t have to say

Walk me love me take

Me home, so you have

Something to put down.

Is that a shitsu?

I don’t know, man. I just walk it.

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TRANSPLANT

by Linda Simoni-Wastila

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when the specialist arrived in his shiny white jacket the room stilled, a sterile still life colder than

the air used to keep the machinery blipping and bleating and cool from shorts that could gum wires and tubes and send electric shocks down lifelines to the system — my system — and when he shook his head, his mouth a hyphen, the air grew colder yet and heaved my heart into a pulsing mass of valves and vessels, one last gasp before it puttered into a puddle of tissue necrotic and grey like hope gone south with the geese

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Caroline Zarlengo Sposto lives in Memphis, Tennessee. She is the poetry editor for Humor in America. http://humorinamerica. wordpress.com/



Nick Sanford is currently an undergraduate studying English/Creative Writing at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. In an area of never-ending rain, he writes about the magical/surreal and despises purple Skittles.

Stephen Ross is a doctoral candidate at Oxford working on 20th-century American poetry. He is an editor and co-founder of the webjournal, Wave Composition.