Last Winter My Father Abandoned Me in the Forest With My Brother, Who Was Eaten by a Witch; I Burned Her to Death In the Spring. Juleigh Howard-Hobson __________ I’m alive — although I am not happy;I am hungry most of the time, and whenIt’s hot I’m thirsty. When the…
Read MoreAsh Goedker __________ Grams Writes a Letter of Advice to a Single Father Raising Minnesota Child If she maintains the dinosauris how she’ll deliver Halloween, if she bawls a joke and missesthe punch line; if she dawdlesat all, she’s sure as heck yours. If this Christmas she begs a realstocking…
Read MoreEleanor Boudreau __________ Earnest Postcard Dear Earnest,The front of a motorcycle reminds me of my reproductive system—handle bars the fallopian tubes, mirrors ovaries, headlight uterus,and front wheel vagina. Working in the barn, I fit my sweaty fingers in a glove,and remember you at your cruelest,“Get thee to a nunnery. To…
Read MoreLeaving Leaf River Hannah Kroonblawd __________ The dining room’s hardwood floor was waxed so mirror-like that Rebekah could see her face reflected off it. Mom had never put down a rug, thinking it too expensive or too stuffy or too much like Jenna Fairchild’s dining room, all cut glass and…
Read MoreIn a Dark House CQ Quintana __________ My sister lives in a dark house in a world I don’t understand. Sisters, sisters, never were there such devoted sisters!1 My wife and her sisters are four in a linkedchain. Their faces like a set of dolls: the judge, the professor, the…
Read MoreWinter with Periwinkle Redfern Boyd __________ Summer gets all the glory. People talk about their lives changing during the hot months. Our season was winter, especially the limbo between Christmas and New Year’s. That time belonged to us, me and Periwinkle, and to our families, who lived the other eleven…
Read MoreFrom the Labor Café in Warsaw Jeffrey Alfier __________Kopernika Street. If I recall rightly I drift through Sunday quiet the city wrapsitself in, streets nearly mute in the breaking light.On the café patio I see the same old man who sat herelast winter watching rain induced by coldinto the season’s…
Read MoreVan Gogh Hopes in Arles V.C. Myers __________ “Hope is in the stars” -Vincent Van Gogh In his virgin canvas, Van Gogh sawnocturnes, the many vistas of Arles,his Bouches-du-Rhône market, adelirious delicatessen tasted onlyfrom a distance, far away from thebustling Café Terrace crowd—hisdream of a coffeehouse artist colonydashed by his…
Read MoreTouching the Truth Claire Scott __________ In this version the woman in the grey Burberry suit overslept/barely time for a shower/didn’t leave home till ten/ In this version she forgot her phone/left it on the counter/couldn’t text while driving and drinking coconut water/ In this version she was living weeks…
Read MoreEleanor Levine __________ Liza’s Tattoo A radical mix of Godand birth exhumed fromtrees and birds and skies andman hemmed from his soul:the means to a deity unearthed,sewn through the veins ofskin in intermediate moments ofamity and reprieve __________ Stephanie’s T-shirts She wears LSD cats,Jack Kerouac unshaven,Alf and Harry Potter.I inherit…
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