Court Castaños __________ Burn Rising Yesterday, Blake asked me, what are you doingwith your hands today? I opened them, read:too clean, too dry. And remembered thesehands, just seven years old,aimed for his eye, glasses and all, sockedit red, puffed, like a burn rising.Blake Gollmer, my best friend, and his betrayal:an…
Read MoreEsteban Rodríguez __________ Throw Down With rumors in every room,you learn who wants to throw downwith who, that tomorrow,or the next day or the next,you will face an enemy you didn’t knowyou had. And so, you go home,raid your mother’s jewelry box,put on every ring she owns,and in your room,…
Read MoreSeth Simons __________ Winter Sonnet But wait. I’m not an ornithologist.You’ve never lost your hat in Lake Erieor come to hate your friend one restlessAugust in a corn maze in Kentucky. Last Christmas we poured whiskey into snowpacked wooden bowls and ate it with a spoon.Your lips were cold blue…
Read MoreStephanie Athena Valente __________ Lovers in Alchemy drip me in quartz,powder my lipspurple swollen, i ate the bees,there was nothing left alive tinged eyelashesher skin, drippingpretending to be translucent. we’re gamine, thinking aboutthe humanity, not thinking about humanitysipping, slipping polished stoneslike royal honey, like truth into diamond pots,we’re listening nymphs,…
Read MoreBryce Berkowitz __________ Broad Ripple, Toxic Masculinity, & The Uber Driver That Asked About the Snow To: Isn’t it always the father, the mother?From: Isn’t it always the man behind the drapes?Date: They didn’t even know it was my birthday.Subject: Broad Ripple, Toxic Masculinity, & The Uber Driver…
Read MoreSara Moore Wagner __________ Invasive Spotted Lanternfly Close to Ohio Border It’s a mirror of a lantern,it hangs over the garden,sways back and forth on the fingerof the fern, outstretched. Semi-translucent, wrapped in red, crimsonas the bottom of a well in the morning,lit up. It echoes the ladybug, that littlered…
Read MoreDrivers Ed David Armand __________ It’s Saturday. Early in the morning and my parents are already dropping me off at a strip mall in downtown Covington, Louisiana, where I’m going to spend the next eight hours taking a drivers education course so that I can get my license the following…
Read MoreEncounter Benjamin Kessler __________ Turns out Studs Henry had been keeping exotic animals on eleven acres east of Red Butte. That’s pretty fucked, forcing zebras and meerkats to freeze through the high plains winters. Making things worse was the fact that, right before Studs ate his gun, he opened all…
Read MoreAdam Tavel __________ Nightie edamame green and lace the lastAugust breeze blew through itlike a windsock the idle rich soarabove their beachfront cottage to saylook even the air we own that too at twelve I was old enough to want itagainst my cheek but didn’t nor did Iwant to see…
Read MoreThe Sound of Silence Amanda Hays __________ Ray couldn’t decide which of the oozing, bleeding bags of meat would most please his brother. The overhead lights in the meat section of the Piggy Wiggly were dim, the air cool. After much deliberation, he tossed one of the packages into his…
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