by Te’Mera Bell There are times when I still set the table for two. Perhaps it’s because of habit, or maybe it’s because of false hope. The mornings come with a heaviness that settles within me. It’s dark, and bleak. There is no sunshine, there is no true rest, there just is. Grief is there, holding on to the vows we used to…
by Zach Jones I hold up the roof of my home Flowers spring up at the base of my feet I keep my TV volume at only odd numbers And line my yard with pavement I walk on wood and gasoline products Cheap rolls, shiny tile I run myself ragged When the…
by Megan Hodges Bring milk, powdered now, rationed through a glitching app that thanks you for your patriotism. Eggs, if you can find them, each stamped with a barcode and a warning: “May induce memory.” Two loaves of bread, one for now, one to trade for a minute of Wi-Fi so we can watch the President cry into a teleprompter, insisting, yet again, that it’s still…
by Matt Zambito “One of the biggest revelations is that the Earth and Moon are slowly drifting apart at the rate that fingernails grow, or 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) per year. This widening gap is the result of gravitational interactions between the two.” —from a NASA statement released August 10, 2020 Alas, this celestial couple is separating, capitulating…
by Erin Harer On good days, we dance. We sing Grace’s favorite songs while I cook a real dinner, with no boxes or frozen things, making our tiny redwood cabin smell like a home. We laugh at stupid jokes and let time pass without me having to force a smile or…
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…