by Betty Stanton Hands smelled of smoke long before the match was struck. We stacked the wood too high, and it swayed with the weight of grief. The fire took its time choosing which bones to touch. Ash gathered in our throats, and we swallowed without protest. Someone said the word sacrifice, but it tasted…
by Betty Stanton Hands smelled of smoke long before the match was struck. We stacked the wood too high, and it swayed with the weight of grief. The fire took its time choosing which bones to touch. Ash gathered in our throats, and we swallowed without protest. Someone said the word sacrifice, but it tasted…
by Zach Jones I miss those Marlboro memories, Smoking, watching silver screens. Call me from a phone booth late at night. Scratches on my LP helped me sleep. Beat boys jumping trains, Bumming for a bed. Now drugstores are disappearing, Drugstores are dead. Give me back records, Give me cassettes. Drugstores are disappearing, Drugstores are dead. I miss real life, I…
by Sarah Carleton We stand outside the iron gates of Universal Studios,talking about how capitalism has gone awry and how lawmakers here are afraid of paper strawsas we peer through the bars like paupers at a palace, taking in the set of America—a mishmash of glass block,fairy-tale cottages, midcentury city…
by Michael Theroux Cutter Bill had all his fingers and was proud of it. Most loggers, especially “cutters” who reached the ripe old age of 60 or so like Bill, had left various body parts scattered amongst the logging slash, accidents many loggers didn’t walk away from. Not Bill. Nope. He had plenty of close calls,…
by Sarah Carleton My dad is not walking around the house,his knee making a little ping, his cane rocking the backbeat,and he isn’t telling the same joke five times or working his waythrough a story about a neighbor who knew a guy who was the cousinof an old college friend…
by Ihor Pidhainy Bread and potatoes, Add a dollop of cream, A cabbage, a beat, a carrot, And the occasional cutlet or chicken, And you have your diet Foolproof for centuries Unless a famine strikes, Your neighbor steals your grain, And other crops are siphoned off. Your children and parents thin out And die, and you hobble along Until your neighbor…
by Emily Brochu The Siren’s Song They say the sea remembers. Every secret whispered into her waves, every cry lost to her depths, she keeps. And so she remembers Lyra. Cast Overboard It was Roger who dragged her from the shadows of the lower deck. His hand was a vise on her wrist,…
by Yuan Changming During the great flood Noah hid himself in the ark While Dayu tried to contain it With his bare hands Prometheus stole fire From Olympian gods While Sui Ren got it By drilling wood hard Smart Daedalus crafted wings To fly away from his prison-tower While Old Fool removed the whole Mountain blocking his way …
by Shaun O. Ceallaigh Albert Clark shuffled along the empty church’s central aisle, countering the weight of the oxygen tank on his back with his walking stick. He stopped beside a pew and placed another printout of the Miracle Prayer on the bench. Once he had distributed all ten copies…
by Sarah Carleton A single hummingbird measures the crash and pull of waves beneath a wide sky. No green shimmer and near-invisible flight—the sprite holds still,black as a quarter note. Palms twice the girth of the ones back home rise into the clouds.Royal palms, they’re called, a name that tastes British, like…