The Bloody Yawn Tom Davis   THE NIGHT’S HEAT and dampness hung like a shroud. Mosquitoes buzzed. One lit near the tip of his bushy red handlebar moustache. He felt an irritating sting as the vector punctured his camouflage-painted skin, but he could do nothing. He glared into the blackness at the faint movement.      A guard ambled toward him, weapon slung. This one’s small, he thought, barely shoulder height. But that AK’s a great equalizer.      McQuid eased the Gerber from its scabbard, the handle settling in his hand. Gotta be quick and quiet—mostly quiet, he thought, as rain drowned the night sounds.      The guard stopped, then turned from the jungle wall that hid the Irishman. McQuid led with his left foot. His huge hand reached around cupping mouth and nose. He pulled the guard to his chest hyper-extending the throat. In the same instant, he placed the Gerber’s blade over the jugular.      He felt momentary resistance as serrated teeth tore through skin, vein, and cartilage. After the initial incision, the Gerber sliced efficiently from left to right opening a red quarter moon.      Air gushed. Sticky spurts soaked McQuid’s sleeve. The coppery smell of fresh blood flooded the air. The guard twisted violently with surprising strength then, in a bubbling wheeze, gave up.      McQuid dissolved into the jungle with the body, placed it belly down, paused, and listened. The unrelenting rain soaked the foliage. A stench filled his nostrils as the corpse let loose both bowels and bladder. McQuid turned his victim. A bloody yawn drooled.      At another time and place, he would have called the woman beautiful. But this was not another time or place. This was here and now, and she was dead—very ugly dead.      A lone mosquito buzzed McQuid’s ear and lit on his neck. He squashed it.   Tom Davis' publishing credits include Poets Forum, The Carolina Runner, Triathlon Today, Georgia Athlete, The Fayetteville Observer's Saturday Extra, A Loving Voice Vol. I and II, Special Warfare., and Winston-Salem Writers' POETRY IN PLAIN SIGHT program for May 2013 (poetry month). He's authored the following books: The Life and Times of Rip Jackson, The Most Fun I Ever Had With My Clothes On, The Patrol Order; and The R-complex. Tom lives in Webster, NC.

MASKS      Thomas Rain Crowe When moon becomes the mask of the sun and rocks shed their skin like snakes to join in circles and dance. And water runs uphill to turn into fire. How will we sing to the land? What hidden mercy will have boarded up our past in dreams? Seeds buried by soil. Faces covered by the fingers of negligence. Our ancient names. Thomas Rain Crowe is a prize-winning poet and an internationally- published author of thirty books, including the multi-award winning book of nonfiction Zoro’s Field: My Life in the Appalachian Woods (Univ. of Georgia Press, 2005); The Laugharne Poems written in Wales and published by Welsh publisher Carreg Gwalch in 1997; and the classic contemporary Celtic language anthology Writing the Wind: A Celtic Resurgence. As an editor, he has worked with Beatitude magazine, Katuah Journal and the Asheville Poetry Review. He is founder and publisher of New Native Press. His literary archives have been purchased by the Duke University Special Collections Library. He lives in the Tuckasegee community of rural western North Carolina.