Winter 2020

by Anuja Ghimire A wintry Texas morning, I wait for the sunThe full moon, a star, or two by the windowGolden Pothos […]

Grief Is A Story I Was Told On Rosary Beads

Electra Rhodes Mam was laid out cotton-starched on the bed. The stillest I’d ever seen her. She’d not like to be known […]

What Is or Is Not True

Laurie Marshall While it is true I did not accept his proposal, that did not prove that I did not love him. […]

Parent and Child

by Rebecca Ruvinsky A sense of living alreadyin the past. He is lookingat a dying woman whileshe is breathing. Eating.She can only […]

My Rooster Booster

Frances Gapper Skipping most stages of poultry production including death, he’d blagged a ride in the delivery truck. He was free-range organic, […]

Sun in Our Eyes

Rebecca Ruvinsky The audacitywas circumstantial: we didn’t know we wereflying until it was toolate to stop. Then, we’re hopeless, trippingover each other, […]

The Light Falls Through

Jared Povanda With angular gaps in the branches. Light everywhere. In my hair, on my skin, claws of it and petals. A […]

Rama Lama Ding Dong

Sutton Strother On the album cover the Rock Star reaches out, so you take his hand and pull him free, out of […]

Sitting on a Stool by a Bar

Jesse Millner Once I saw a man punch a homeless guy in the face.It was afternoon. It was the mid-1980s. It was […]

The Avenue of Slurred Dreams

by Jesse Millner It was cold then, mid-1980s, Chicago—authentic winter with below zero daysand the wizardry of turquoise ice alongthe lake, shaped […]

What Butch Says

Tania Hershman            Butch says I need to watch everything you do. I say, But he’s just sitting there. Butch slaps my back. […]

Cosmic Lovecraftian Love

Wyatt Winnie Saturn ringsaround cul-de-sacs,adhesive radio wavesjamming, jamming transmissions fromNeptune to Mercury searchingfor staticky reception andconfirmation of alien life. She’s wrapped hertentacles […]

Corona Legal

Wyatt Winnie They’re out of horchata againand I don’t know how to tellthe othersI’m not Corona legal,at least not in this state […]

Each Breath a Chain

Sara Hills After school and on Saturdays we couple up and make-out under the overpass in the middle of town—under shirts, over […]

Addressing her inner voices

Shannon Kenny I have a thick skinbut the patriots and bigotsare wearing it thin.The blood of the world is all over my […]

U.I.

Frank McHugh Universal indicator of right, wrong,good, bad, life or death. Of course,no-one nowadays can make a decisionso the digit wavers, not […]

Running

Julia Kelly And we ran through the streets, stars like comets streaking the black sky, two girls  laughing,  pounding the concrete through […]

Plastic

Nora Nadjarian I’ve spoken to thousands of art dealers listed in the yellow pages. I’ve turned the thin pages and made over […]

Star Fall

Joyce Wheatley There was the “fall.” “Dropped on her head as a baby,” Mama said. Nothing congenital. Nothing genetic. An accident. Story […]

The Vampire Visits The Bog

Meg Mulcahy We sit ditch-side in curdled breeze and watch as curlews tango in briar and thorn. Bodies like mine are made […]

There; Fixed.

Amanda Wilkins Our dirt smelled different, I say.Rust and library paste,Ground up talons and the blood of mice.Sure, it had the same […]

Last Night I Dreamed

Jesse Millner of Chicago back in the 1980s when I drank shots and beers with Polacks and Puerto Ricans in West Side […]

The Chair

by Jesse Millner The neighbors are Labor Day loud now that the rain has driven them in from the golf course. Why […]

The Salvation of the Loud Refrigerator

by Jesse Millner Having your wife leave you is exhausting.The moon still rises and falls outside& the Florida heat kicks your ass […]

Four Houses Ago, Early Morning

Sidney Dritz Ugly little dinosaurs, thoseprehistoric wonders onthe back porch, thosethree-toed feet pebbled andstrange in the sun, bobbingalong with those stunted,immobile wings, […]

The Hill We Die On

Sara Hills Daddy says it’s every man’s right to have a guru, and more’s the pity if you only have one. Used […]

Gavel

Eoin Devereux From the rough slanted fieldA streel of a scarecrowBears witness,To a brimful cup left on the doorstep,An extra place at […]

Sharpest Teeth in the Swamp

Myna Chang Every morning, Uncle Leon’s out there baby-talkin’ his favorite gator, Ethyl. “Who’s the smartest girl? Yes, you are,” he coos […]

The Vagaries of Her Plot

Melissa Ostrom Will the child know what to watch forWhen she leaves her tame homeOf rosebud cup, glass ballerinaAnd broaches the forestWith […]

Revenge, Via Knitwear

David Cook The dog had been moulting again, but that was okay because it gave Lily more material to knit with. Click-clack […]

Night Cricket

Susmita Bhattacharya The lines are drawn with chalkon the tennis court. A temporary pitchis created. Lights hang from bamboo poles.Boys from across […]

River Mother

Emily Devane This river is a careless mother. She sets out with good intentions, singing The Hills Are Alive at the top […]

Faster than Fairies

by Frank McHugh The little burnt hands of the saintheld on tight to the railway power lineshis charred and tatty remains flying […]

If Only

by Gina Harlow In another life I would have lived in Manhattanpoor but pores oozing with interpretation and trepidation,In exhilaration of the […]

Dr. Audubon Will See Me Now

Amy Barnes My therapist is a bird woman. When I arrive, a caged parakeet sits in her office. Carrier pigeons arrive and […]

The House on Chicken Legs

Stephanie Parent Her cottage prowls the forestOn legs of rubbery fleshClacking bonesPrehistoric claws It leaves footprints large enoughTo swallow a girlHood and […]

Daytrip

Jan Simpson The sandwiches would stink the car up long before they reached the seaside.  But it wasn’t a picnic without egg […]

En Caul

Bayveen O’Connell A mighty grunt, then a smooth slither out. The midwife gasped and in the next breath, giggled. “In all my […]

Chicken

Kinneson Lalor I’m about to click the shutter when Henry-Robert ruffles his feathers again, the ripple of something in the space where […]