spin the attraction


I believed it when you said: 
“Stay away from Okies.” 
“Stay away from swabbies busting bottles off the rail.” 
“Don’t bug Carlos.”  

Tonight the perseids will glitter for an hour, 
sputter. disappear.

I believed it when you said 
you’d find a job tomorrow. 





everybody’s falling 


Sure, my palms were sweating. The way she smiled at you, the way she took your hand and placed it on her hip. The way you drifted from the orbit of relationship. This is how it works, right? One stacked in the warp and reeling. The other standing still. 

Kathleen Hellen is the recipient of prizes from the H.O.W. Journal and Washington Square Review. Her debut collection Umberto’s Night won the poetry prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House. Featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily, Hellen’s work has been nominated multiple times for Best of the Net, the Pushcart and recently Best American Short Stories. She is the author of The Only Country Was the Color of My Skin, Meet Me at the Bottom, and two chapbooks.She lives in Baltimore.