Cindy Hochman and Bob Heman

COLLABORATION #50 


This list contains a mountain, a moon, and a boat. 
Each is only allowed a certain amount of space. 
The mountain must shear off its pointy peaks. 
And the moon is only allowed to appear in the southern sky. 
While the boat can be no larger than a dinghy. 

Another list contains only the color purple and the number 5. 
This could be a code, or maybe not. 
Or maybe the purple only hides other things on the list. 
The number 5 has always been suspect. 
They always think it implies more than it really does. 

Would I be suspect if I started a new list? 
Not if it contains bees, or a mechanism that makes the flowers work. 
Maybe this list contains too many things. 
Nonsense -- it doesn't even contain a single bear. 

Cindy Hochman, a proud resident of Brooklyn, New York, is the president of "100 Proof" Copyediting Services and the editor-in-chief of the online poetry journal First Literary Review-East. She writes book reviews for Pedestal magazine, Clockwise Cat, and Home Planet News. Her latest chapbook is Habeas Corpus (Glass Lyre Press).

Bob Heman's words have appeared recently in New American Writing, Caliban online, Otoliths, concis, First Literary Review-East, and in The Other Side of Violet (great weather for MEDIA). He has edited CLWN WR, formerly Clown War, since the early '70s.