The Glacier
Issue One
Fall 2022

Broadcast

Suddenly, the world is gigantic. 
It has grown overnight.
You see this while you are eating cereal.
A very sugary cereal.
An unnatural berry flavor in it, for sure.
A bug crawls across the painted baseboard.
It is a centipede.
In fact, there are two of them, 
which means this is a love story.
Maisie coughs.
Maisie shortens her bangs. 
There is now something about them
that says “Hi, group,”
like she is standing in the middle
of a circle of chairs. 
She says the way you are sitting gives off a feeling of spring.
A design feeling.
A downtown feeling.
A feeling feeling. A buck 
walks by the window.
It is polishing its antlers on the bark of a tree,
and you think
We never had a window there before.

The New Painting

The doctor rode the horse 
into town. Or the horse riding 
town into the doctor...

In the new painting by 
[		                                ] a yellow
-speckled stool is stacked 
(carefully) with 
human skulls, 
which we discuss over 
crepes and malbec 
in the garden.   
	             Massacre 
is the pinnacle
of mortal enterprise, you say, 
touching your pointer finger 
to mine. We have been married 
twenty-seven years
too long.   
                     The horror, 
I say, of the labor class is 
they are a mystic…
Then the teleprompter shuts off. 
We wriggle out 
of our tight suitcoats, 
quick.

When we woke all the trees 
were made of gold

I Was the Moon

Especially because
I never saw the moon,
I was ready
for Kristiana. Kristiana 
Fisticuffs; Kristiana Wrench
and Silly String
I called her
from the moon.
I was the moon
she said 
in reply and that’s not 
the last 
I remember
of the emergency.
Imagine a cart 
like Kristiana, 
full up of real 
warmth, traveling
the country 
with an excess
of minds. Bright 
fish stepped all over
my hands. 

Pretty much
never even tasted porridge
until the morning
when rococo came over 
to borrow
some human
nature. Kristiana
at the window
was petting a doe.
Because
I was the moon
I was ready
for Kristiana. Kristiana 
who said a lot 
of important words
on stage 
in the basement
while I 
was affecting the tides. 
Who biked circles 
around her treehouse
as if it were
whistling
like a tea kettle. 
The sun rose for one hour.
Bright fish 
stepped all over my hands.

JAKE BAUER is the author of the chapbook Big Pool, Oh and co-author of the chapbook Idaho Falls. He is also the author of Tracey Emin’s Tent, his first full-length collection of poems, published in January, 2023, by 42 Miles Press. He lives in Traverse City.

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