Refresh

v., trans.
1. To share; to offer a helping of something not necessarily desired because it is generally
accepted to be of questionable if not limited utility or value.
2. To consume any delicacy unknowingly or in an unfeeling, disinterested manner. When used
ironically—that is, predominantly—to eat one’s heart out unconsciously, as if one were under no
compunction (i.e., had not been taunted into the act) to eat one’s heart out yet proceeds to eat
one’s heart out all the same. As in, “With these sweet thoughts do even I refresh my labors, even
as such sweet relieving itself, thought-out, is refreshed.”

v., intrans.
1. What if reality is all tile-work?
2. What if everything is grid, or perpendiculars all the way down?
3. Do you fear the ascendancy of certain Asian economies? Are you afraid of the derivations
suggested by a toothbrush reclining, turning clean under the greys of running water?
4. When all it is is facile. When all it is is pastiche. When all it is is saying “Shut up and deal.”
When all it is is pink hurtle and effervescent medicine.

n.
1.The now-and-then moment of waking, the terror, and the regarding of the terror
As in, “Every night when I was nine years old, and then once a week, once a month, and a blip
and stutter like that every few years. At some point the whole routine skipped a decade, and the
feeling was different when it came back. The tracking was off, so I could see the black border
around each frame, reach up through that border like Fritz the Cat and grab my own ankles, drag
myself frame by frame into the future. A ladder of selves slipping through a ladder of acetate.”
2. Also every other moment, the ones you viable.

Joe Milazzo is the author of the novel Crepuscule W/ Nellie, two volumes of poetry — The Habiliments and Of All Places In This Place Of All Places — and several chapbooks (most recently, @p_roblem_s). His writings have appeared in Black Clock, Black Warrior Review, BOMB, Prelude, Tammy, Texas Review and elsewhere. He is an Associate Editor for Southwest Review and the Founder/Editor-In-Chief of Surveyor Books. Joe lives and works in Dallas, TX, and his virtual location is http://www.joe-milazzo.com. Here in these definitions in danger are what these words now mean, or might mean, or must mean if they wish to escape the new world incommensurate with the perceptions they’re accustomed to inhabiting.

Eric Lindley is a musician, writer, and artist living in the bay area. His writing has appeared in Fence, Joyland, Tammy, and elsewhere, and other work at the Santa Monica Museum of Art, Machine Project, Telic Arts Exchange, The Knitting Factory, and The Smell. With Janice Lee and Joe Milazzo, he co-edited the online interdisciplinary arts journal [out of nothing] from 2009 to 2015. You can find Eric’s work online at https://likeoverflowing.com/