by Diane Webster Day by day my pills leave their tiny doors open attesting to the fact that I swallowed them. Week after week I fill the compartments with their allotted pills and snap the doors shut. Only to start Sunday through Saturday time after time, faster than a week used to last.
by Jon Wesick How much does anarchy weigh? Is the State of the Union Address on Elm Street? Do penguins cheat on their income taxes? Does the aristocracy make good bookmarks? What about elephants? Did telegraphs cry when Inspector Morse died? Are mountains safe to machine wash? Do giant sequoias shop at big-and-tall stores? What color socks…
by Grant Segall A shadow glided across the urn. Still her mother’s daughter, Anna glanced at the sky. “In the maple now,” Jim whispered before she could find it for herself. “A goshawk, maybe?” “She taught you well.” Momma used to lead the family through bramble and mud in search…
by Sonnet Mondal When I read a book of poems I try to think of the moment when the first flow of thoughts gushed through its pages. When I hear a music album I try to think of the moment when the first note of the first track in it kissed the muse of its roots. When…
by Rob McClure Didn’t mean to leave you lost in the corn mazeso long,didn’t know the gown of moonlightcould come caress your candy-bonesand bathe you in milk cherry blood.Didn’t mean to set the cornrows ablaze,make you ghostwalk through the smoke,didn’t know the emergencypath lighting failedairy hostess you,dry-ice starlet with a…
by Matthew Wherttam Martin hopped on to the back of the camp’s garbage truck, expecting to be riding it all the way to the town dump. But the truck made a sharp turn and flung him against the trunk of an oak tree. He slid down the tree, flapped around…
by Carol Casey The path is trodden, dusty, level.You know it will take youwhere many have gone. Step off—tangles of brambles,sometimes with blackberries,more often with little clawsthat catch on clothes and skin;and tortuous tree roots—inconvenient, sacred data unearthed—subterranean snakelets somehowsifted into snarls for feet to catch.There are stems that twine…
by Carol Casey The August sun has almost spun the straw to gold in the large stack behind the barn. We take turns sliding down its side, whooping in the earthy smell, the scratchy stalks tickling. Not sure why I go down backward, push off so hard. I land with a thump on almost…
by Tracy Lyall Songs of 70s rock stars are fading, with old albums—vinyl records in colorful covers stacked on top of each other, thirty, forty at a time—lying dormant in a thrift-store window display. The roller rink is closed down, wooden floors scratched by skate wheels, molding and mildewing. The…
by Sarah Carleton They ride the East Coast, up, down,hopping from venue to venue like fingers on a fretboard, passenger-seat sister playing mandolinas they sing to mark the miles, their paired tones woven into road-tire roar.On stage they perform the trick of trading instruments for a tune or two to…