Tonight John Brantingham __________ It’s 2ambefore I noticethe snow in the streetlight coming downin fat wet flakes.It’s an inch thick on the road, and no one’sdriven this way yet.Sirens are whining and so far from methat they’re soft as birdsong.The blue light of my neighbor’s televisionis playingoff his curtains. I…
Read MoreA 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 Moreis it too tender to kiss? Hannah Rousselot __________ I.in the past, i always held my wounds outgaping and red, hoping someone would noticeand want to kiss me better. many tried, but none could re-knitmy skin, my heart, my brain togetherwith strands from their own body.i had to do it…
Read MoreWhat Fancied Her Rikki Santer __________ If a toilet seat can be a lyre& applause stored in a box then this is the story of a believer—your closet in the candy-colored language of clown—you witha pimiento center & comfortable as a sock, never ruffled or lacybut blooming in tie-dye spider…
Read MoreCourt 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…
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