Article Z: Letter to Dad | a double abecedarian Zebulon Huset __________ Article Z: beware the easy. Chest ≈ thorax. Defend the (breast) plate like Harmon Kilibrew. Eventually Pavlovfinds his own saliva for a tiramisu— ghost flickers each whisper of dessert. Harmon, batting lefty, nervous. I (innocently) disregarded yourjovial spirit kindness (even…
Read MoreSophia M. Giudici __________ Tattoos Some of us grow upTo make our bodies coloring books—Stories marking warm skin. __________ Playing Dress Up Why are children the only ones allowedto dress up in every color of their dreams?They come outside on Saturday morningsstill vested in the vestiges of sleepTrain pajamas topped…
Read MoreAlicia Cook __________ The Widow in the Window The Widow in the window watchedthe sea-town home across the streetlose its weather-torn For Sale sign. Moving vans curbed and unloaded innocuousclues like a beige couch and an upright piano. The Widow in the window watchedas newlyweds crossed the threshold.She remembered her…
Read MorePaula Cisewski __________ Red Poem In the fenced tennis courts, a woman rollerdiscos solo, weaving between green nets on fuchsiaskates. Meanwhile, an upside-down flag hangsfrom one bungalow and an upside-right flag hangs from the next. This neighborhood we call our own.I’m home slicing radishes into a bowlwhich is a version…
Read MoreNumbers Frightened Me Robin Michel __________ Not the shapes, colors and textures decorating the classroom walls,but what to do after writing each problem in pencil on lined paperknowing my erasures would rub holes into the once smooth surface. When no one looked, I counted on my fingers, needing more digits…
Read MoreAn Ode to Shakuntala Devi, or Puzzles to Frustrate You A set of five gogyoshi Gargi Mehra __________ If your friend is twice as old as youwere when he was three years youngerthan you, how many candles would you blowbefore you unravelled the mysteriesof the woman who humbled calculators When…
Read MoreCalculation with Women as Birds in Post-Roe America Stefanie Kirby __________ An egg in the hand is worth more than an egg in the tree,which is worth more than the basket of shattered eggs.There are no birds in this problem. No birds laying eggs.No birds inside eggs that were laid.…
Read MoreThe Cost to Benefit Ratio of Grief Linea Jantz __________ you taught methe logarithm of lossis infinite to the power of n+1, where n=love the next number in the series iszero you can divide griefamong a thousand empty plates and still havenothing to quote Mean Girls:the limit does not exist…
Read MoreZeno’s Arrow Steve Harrison __________ Zeno said that chopping timeinto an infinite number of bitsproved that nothing could happen:Achilles could not outrun a turtle;an arrow could never reach its mark. Zeno’s paradox baffled the rustics,but pleased his teacher Parmenides,who seemed to have glimpsed eternity,where all things have happened already. Centuries…
Read MoreA eulogy for the rare-Earth hypothesis & The value of pointless activity: a proof Michael Galko __________ A eulogy for the rare-Earth hypothesis Walking on the beach as a child, trying toestimate the grains of sand underfoot oron the little stretch just next to us, on the whole beach, on…
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