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The Sky / Weightless Treasure / A Neon Body / If I Die

April 26, 2021/ David Hostetter

The Sky

The plunging water, the plunging light:
replenished, stupefied and serene.

It is
so wide-open
that what looks and feels like endless light shines through,

then a glinting truth
that looks like madness, the bald white hemorrhage
of a gravity moving through the moon.

An endless field of apertures
conglomerate in images and runes,
slicing you— and you— you have moved.

A mountain’s moved inside.
When it becomes a planet it’ll have its own sky
a swooping sun shines through.


Weightless Treasure

I move into darkness
and because there’s nothing to anchor me
there’s nothing to drown me
and there’s nothing to blow me away.
I have blown myself away—
I’ve laid waste to me
and weightless treasure’s emerged
and I’ve been swept up.


A Neon Body

There is a neon body floating in the flesh
with gratitude for everything.

Its limbs are limpid as a stream breathing.
It has always just made love.

It is as thoughtless as a robe,
and it allows the lids to blink so slowly
you think you must have risen into heaven.

It is better than heaven.

It can make you give birth to the kind of blooming
you thought could not exist.

It can do this so calmly
that it doesn’t seem like anything’s happening.

Even in the screaming lips that are buried in the clay
its gratitude transcends evil,
and it is not naive.


If I Die

If I die don’t pity me—
anything has a throat.

I hang by a strand,
and I can expand—and you can encompass it all—

worlds are growing from each other like geysers.

David Hostetter is the lemon-soaked apple and spinach side dish that tastes mildly of cyanide from the apple seeds and glistens under your kitchen lights as you wonder if your guests have conspired not to show. He is from Hogtown, Ontario, and would like you to contact him at if you get any ideas.

Amuse-Bouche Archive

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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published the second Friday of every month.

Today’s course:

Glitch Wisdom

May 12, 2023/in Blog / KJ McCoy
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Lessons on Getting Paid: My First Year as a Freelance Writer

April 14, 2023/in Blog / EJ Saunders
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How to Kill a Cat, or How to Prepare for CATastrophe

March 10, 2023/in Blog / Meghan McGuire
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Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

The Secret Histories of Everywhere

June 2, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Brian Lynn
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Into the Linguistic Rabbit Hole

May 5, 2023/in Midnight Snack / paparouna
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Dancing into Detachment

April 7, 2023/in Midnight Snack / Robert Kirwin
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Brendan Nurczyk
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Isabella Dail
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Abigail E. Calimaran
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Word From the Editor

Our contributors are diverse and the topics they share through their art vary, but their work embodies this mission. They explore climate change, family, relationships, poverty, immigration, human rights, gun control, among others topics. Some of these works represent the mission by showing pain or hardship, other times humor or shock, but they all carry in them a vision for a brighter world.

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