A Typical Day in the Life of Love JC Reilly __________ Love crawls from a holelike a mouse in the pantry;beware its droppings. Love seeks its shadow behind its back but can’t turn fast enough to see. Love hangs its sheet ona line in the morning sun.It snaps with the…
Read MoreSixteen Rounds of Chemo Sara Pirkle __________ After a nurse pluckedthe IV from my portlike a wasp stingerand the rubber-tire tasteof Taxol faded— After the victorypicture was snappedand posted onlinefor hundreds ofstrangers to like— After fake smilingwhile a chorusof nurses serenadedas I dutifully rangthe treatment bell— I sank into the…
Read MoreSagittarius A* Rohan Buettel __________ There is a hole in the heart of my galaxy;supermassive and black; no light emitsin any event from below the horizon.It sits in the snowy wastes of the Milky Way,dense with star clusters and interstellar nebulae.The absence keeps growing —no matter how much falls in,…
Read MoreA Strand (2022) Johanna Barbier __________ __________ Johanna Barbier is a French artist based in Dublin, Ireland. She loves experimenting with colors and textures and specializes in portrait drawings. She works as a research engineer in the visual effects (VFX) industry, where she interacts with artists from Pixar, ILM, Disney…
Read MoreWhere is the Answer? Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg __________ Is it in the speech of the streetlight,so determined to streak its starof orange insistence in the fog? Is it wherever the hummingbird goesto stillness on a perch in the forestacross the street from the old houses? Or is it the houses themselves,…
Read MoreJohn Grey __________ Submitting We could all send blood,a few drops of the red stuffin a tiny corked tube.But how would the editorisolate the worthy from the doggerel?Not a pound of flesh.Editors aren’t Shylocks.But maybe an ounce or two.Like a little fingersevered from the hand.Any editor with a half-way decent…
Read MorePost-Modern Polonius Anne Babson __________ “Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell” – William ShakespearePolonius stabbed behind tapestry — But audiences don’t mourn his murder.Hackneyed speeches are the real travesty. Today, when prose is cannon fodder,“There is nothing outside the text.” It bores,Bereft of meaning, say Doctors.The musings of the sage…
Read MoreThere’s a Strand Dustin Radke __________ There’s a strand of uncurly hair that weaveditself through your bandana and fell just tothe right of your smile. Not to be too poetic,but it disobeyed the river of your hair and ledme straight to your smile, and now I miss you.I wonder how…
Read More“Boo”din: It Came from the Swamp, Oct ’22 Poetry Editor: Rachel Pittman Fiction Editor: Abbie Skinner Victoria de Benedicty, “Swamp Girl” (2022), oil paint and oil pastel Fiction “Dear Anonymous Cryptid Photographer” by William Hawkins “nothing to fear” by M. Caroline McMaulay “Summer Love” by Cassondra Windwalker Poetry “Feu-Follet” by…
Read MoreVictoria de Benedicty __________ “The Boyfriend” (2022) Charcoal and oil pastel __________ “Swamp Girl” (2022) Oil paint and oil pastel __________ Victoria de Benedicty is a multi-media artist, writer, and musician from central Florida. Victoria’s interests lie in what can be represented in an image and what an image inherently…
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