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Dots of light in bokeh style

Brain Dance

by Amber Allehoff thoughts like polka-dotscircular and scattered.shattered dreamsa million beams of lightthat never mattered.

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Ocean waves from above

This Ocean is a Poem (after Joy Harjo)

by Amanda Valerie Judd The oceans are a poem –The continuous ebb and flow of the tides,Stanza after stanza in the greatest poem ever written;Each wave a line, punctuated by dolphins,holding a different meaning for each coast it caresses;every word a grain of sand, spoken by the surf,before being tossed…

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Many avocados stacked on top of each other

Avocados

by Ivy Rozen This poem was originally published in Hot Pot Magazine. We ate avocadoson toast, in salads, with chips.We craved their pits.We saved them inventi plastic cups, logo fadingbut my mom’s misspelled nameremained in Sharpie. Tap water, lukewarm:only fill it half-way.Stab the heart with wooden stakesto hold it up,…

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Small brown mouse

The Mouse Problem

by Russell Rowland No hole is too smallfor a mouse to get into your head. First alarm might bea gnawing sound under floorboards.Treating the symptom, you poundon the floor. Sound stops,briefly. Then resumes. Poundingwill not stop it now. Or you find tiny black seedsin your sock drawer, inside a pianoyou…

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Fans holding up rock hand signs at a concert

Too Old to Rock ‘n’ Roll

by Roland Goity Back in the eighties, my buddy Tommy and I saw every hair metal band from Los Angeles and beyond. We even formed our own hair band and noise polluted every neighborhood in Reseda. These days we’re empty nesters, and since his wife was away at a conference…

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Buffet with Indian cuisine

Tasting Eternity

by Nolo Segundo My friend Marco and I went out to for lunch, toa ramshackle little place, but my friend told methe food was great—and it was! Three differentchicken curries, a lovely lamb korma, with a half-dozen veggies, and mango drinks to wash it down. I suppose we visited the…

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Forest path at sunset

His Name Was Owen

by Joshua Gessner (This story contains a dead body.) “It’s weird to see a dead one up close.” Those words felt wrong. All dirty and naked; they were almost like a baby. When it first comes out, wailing and red, pretty but in a gross way. I don’t recall Jane…

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Woman pulling a strand of her curly hair in front of her face

My Dear Friend

by E.J. Fawn A girl stands before me, donning a cobalt-colored dress. She turns to me silently, eclipsed in the typhoon of sundry blues, “Does this look good?” She asks me, hair fashioned in buns uneven. This girl is my friend, so frankly, I tell her no. The dress—we admire—has…

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Students attending a lecture in a university classroom

An Intimation of Interest

by John Cody Bennett January, a new semester, a new section of Modern American Fiction: I’m in my blazer and my tie at the head of the table as students fill seats in the seminar room and wait for class to begin. We start with names ― Dylan, Eli, Jasmine,…

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Headboard of a brown wooden bed with rumpled sheets and pillows

The Thing Behind My Headboard

by Jess Earl Tomorrow comes and the thing behind my headboard scuttles along the drywall, scales chipping paint as it stretches a claw from the shadows above my pillowed head, only to retreat as I open my eyes. “Good morning,” it creaks in the floorboards of the house, “I’ve been…

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