Number 7, November 1998 IN THIS ISSUE... Lazarus, May by Jon Soverow Verb 'To Kill' trans. Ana Berlin Persian Heiress to Wed 800-lb. Gorilla by Sara Aliabadi Susan by Mike Sherry Eglise St. Jean de Malte by Jenny Yue All the Better by Nick Salvato

LAZARUS, MAY His corpse came out of winter like worms in the rains: left arm pinching a sunken chest of drying organs we stood for hours, waiting near a pond for what must have been a tow truck, holding hands in rain coats his white glaze like a baby kingsnake's and his eyes the same his hair spread through my bike and my neighbors grass seasons passing through each other, Mr. Tickle's dangling, orange arms I velcroed round my shoulder. Those of us in church wondered if Jesus or St. Peter or Constantine were ever like this and others wondered the same but by closing eyes and counting their heartbeats or laying down questions like Jackson laid down his wife's spoon, her mirror, his belt, a snake coiled round the World Egg made it hatch and swell as the crane lifts him against the sky a star doing what was right. --Jon Soverow