by Christy Bailes Academic Scratch Literary Criticism they call, as I play desert Jenga with Abbey’s books, spurring academic scratch into my elbow, while his words keep piling anarchy blocks that hiss from post-it tongues, charming words on paper. I can’t stop digging Cactus Ed’s life, even though prickly criticism…
by Doug Sovern People think I died ten years ago. Hell, even my own agent thinks that. I called there the other day. “Abe Vigoda for Mort Bloomstein,” I say. The gal on the phone goes, “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Vigoda is no longer with us.” And by “us,” she…
by Stephen Groak I have always loved my sister, enough to almost kill her. I loved her when I threw a dart in her leg. I loved her when I farted in her face. I loved her when I would slog any short-pitched cricket bowl she would send my way…
by M.J. Cleghorn Pork chops on Thursday. “She was the woman who always brought pork chops on Thursday”. Some woman. Red hair. Nice camel coat. A woman of a certain age. Classy. The Upper Eastside type. Her grandfather was a tough guy with a gang on the the wrong side…
by Wanda Morrow Clevenger A night wind months before frog thrum rock-a-byes baby, carries on its breast lost Jacob Marley. And little else stirs this chill but ruff and fluting. For two decades an owl waits with me for March tilt and many weeks more before a crisp hoo breaks…
by Maile M. Walker You never forget your first love. I’m sure this simple sentence has conjured up memories for you. Images of boyfriends or girlfriends past who made your heart race in unexpected ways. My first love is a bit different. The mistress of my heart isn’t flesh and…
by Kevin Casey For just a quarter, the old man would tell your fortune… Summers after supper — curfewed, pent — we’d collapse in a graceless pack on that squalid house, lost in its cedars. Cracked lath spilled from the kitchen’s sagging plaster, and the stained wall’s sconce made stacked…
by Thomas Joyce Inside a jail in Poland: October 1946 Sitting alone in his cell, 26-year-old Father Yakub Paskievich, suffering from the effects of a bad beating inflicted on him, lowered his head. He wanted to think, sort things out, but he became aware of a distracting noise, a dripping…
by Aaron Powell The warm summer air is heavy with the sweet smell of suntan lotion. I breathe in, studying her oily body—the way her tanned flesh glimmers in the sunlight—as I gently slip into the swimming pool. I slowly open my eyes. The chlorine burns and blurs my vision,…
by Scott Hoenstine In a field near the bend in a small river, six men stood while a seventh was lashed to an old jack-legged fence. Birds sang in the willows on the bank of the river and the tall grass moved like water in the gentle breeze. The air…