3 Stars in Uhrichsville, Ohio

At times I’m unsure how to manage the costly

My heart part bluebell part exit

I dried it like leather ogled its soggy flank from the corner of a dark box

A mess of stars cutting the floor like oil

Honestly I ordered this lady business and was served my greasy slivers

Inappropriate with males and I’ve always been

Eyeing your fiance Iike I’m hungry for fresh light

Yelled at him to give me dirty names like Bad Minutes and Very Thin

My last eaten boyfriend growling in my stomach like a thick sweet bell

Except for the sociopath that followed me around it’s usually a good time

3.5 Stars in Upper Sandusky, Ohio

Same old story: the son was outlawed
The family, cabinets of illness
The county soaked in shifts of heat

He wedges his love like a silverfish
between distance and the long drive to Michigan

Ain’t it disgusting
how he remade me
decent

The kids are so gross
huddled ‘round their kissing bucket

I woulda laughed if not for the stale minutes
turning in my gut like an awful bell

2 Stars in Oregon, Ohio

Find kids a reason to open
their chests, salty and ashamed
and they will come home missing
someone else’s lord

What desperate greasy hell
appears on the less intelligent
Fridays, attempting to repair
what is absolutely lost
with a poorly-lit apology

It’s unhealthy guessing,
draining the deep bottom pieces
for grains of some dreary scary movie

stored in girls’ seared veins
from the forgotten worst of minutes:

A faint slash of tender-
ness before the sorrow festival

ORDER ME
a love that moves like the government:
rented, super hard and oily, its vices a mother
clung to its thigh

Operating as if love hadn’t taken
off to manage its teeth and get battered
in the cleanest bathroom in Woodville

Bend me over the day’s drain
Is this NOT paradise?

A really visible fish rings
slow as molasses on the January morning
scraping mad and waiting hellful

3 Stars in Piqua, Ohio

where we live
we do not have
silver teenagers
to go back to music
dirty and alive
could it be
everything deep-fried
is drowning
here the police
keep trying to end our joy
we must go uniformed
back to our childhoods
take care of the craving
eat the 1950’s
drain their legacy alive
fight for what’s wrong
on purpose
take a picture
ring the bell
just to make some noise

4 Stars in Mansfield, Ohio

In Mansfield I was offered stars so
happy & green their sin tasted generous

For the younger years with all their delightful hoping
I plate apologies like star-fish ringing
I remodel him the way sorry tastes

This place is the future around us
Dressed presentable looking just like its picture

When being is just a volume too jolly to exist
There is nothing worse than sitting around pleased

I am not your dirty little girlfriend dressed in vinegar
I might deep-plate you & bite your pleasant of all its tasty wonderful

“These poems come from a longer series, composed of found text from Yelp and Google reviews of Long John Silvers restaurants across the state of Ohio. One night while Erin was visiting Lena at her home in Ohio, the topic of fast food came up, and they discovered that while LJS was a long-forgotten, but frequent, part of Erin's childhood, Lena had never been there. Erin began craving that greasy greasy fish and wanted Lena to try it, so they looked up locations nearby, and stumbled on some truly interesting reviews. They had the idea to collaborate on a writing project based on those reviews, from locations across Ohio, and began working on the poems the following day, pulling reviews from the internet, and transforming the text into something new. Afterwards they celebrated by eating at LJS (which they both agreed they would never need to do again for the rest of their lives).”

Erin Slaughter is editor and co-founder of The Hunger, and the author of I Will Tell This Story to the Sun Until You Remember That You Are the Sun (New Rivers Press, 2019). Her writing has appeared in Black Warrior Review, The Rumpus, Prairie Schooner, Split Lip Magazine, New South, and elsewhere. Originally from north Texas, she is pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at Florida State University. You can find her online at erin-slaughter.com.

Lena Ziegler is the author of MASH (The A3 Press, 2019). She has been a finalist in the 2018 Autumn House Press Fiction contest and GoldLine Press's 2017 Non-fiction Chapbook contest. Her work has appeared in Split Lip Magazine, Indiana Review, The Flexible Persona, Anti-Heroin Chic, Dream Pop Press, Red Earth Review, and others. She holds an MFA from Western Kentucky University and is pursuing her PhD at Bowling Green State University.