tricky honey & A man of winter Kate Carsella __________ tricky honey You know what they say— We’re headed toward Selfish Times. Disunion. Good then, leave us. Let us part, he chose acrimony. Sunset and salt, daylight in between. Citation: They’ll let you choke on your own saliva on the…
Read MoreConfessions Travis Park __________ Beneath the soft glow of streetlights fading,A revelation whispers, threading through our ordinary world.The park, a familiar canvas, now painted with uncertainty.Her eyes, a mosaic of joy and quiet turmoil,Hold a story yet unfolded, veiled in their depths.The air, thick with the scent of anticipation,Leaves me…
Read MoreAncestral Bed William Miller __________ In the country, there were fewand no one ever slept alone. A strawor chicken-feather mattress was for lean,tired men home from the field,the time between “cain’t see and cain’t see”,for women with hands burned by lye soap,feet blistered by bad ill-fitting shoes.Babies were born there,…
Read MoreLast Night, I Prayed for Peace Jeric Olay __________ Last night, I prayed for peace. But my prayer, I suspect, seems inconceivably large. As I woke up, I paced for the window. From where I stood, everything was christened with wonted quiet. I looked at the bougain- villea that grew on the casserole. Its…
Read MoreCapitalist Necktie Jeffrey H. MacLachlan __________ Treasure Chest comic book Vol.17 No.2 This is a dad tie.This is a straight tie.This is a glum blue tie. This tie mows over tax dependents.This tie hangs from ironed dress shirts.This tie never squirms when belting offspring. This tie tithes at Father Ryan’s…
Read MoreVallie Lynn Watson Vallie Lynn Watson is an Assistant Professor of English/fiction writing in the MFA program at McNeese State University. Her novel, A River So Long, was published by Luminis Books, and recent short stories and essays appear in literary journals such as Hobart, Bending Genres, and PANK. Watson earned her doctorate a thousand…
Read MoreMichael Robins Michael Robins is the author of five books of poetry, most recently The Bright Invisible (Saturnalia Books, 2022). His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Puerto del Sol, The Common, New England Review, and Poetry magazine. He lives in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where he teaches in the MFA program at McNeese State University. Visit…
Read MoreWalking on the Levee on Our Way to Angel Mounds Mark Williams __________ We met on Sunday mornings with our dogs: beagles,retrievers, John Biacinni’s two German Shepherds,a collie, a pair of Great Danes, a pit-mix . . .An ecumenical gathering if ever there was. OnceI counted twenty-one people and twenty-six…
Read MoreFree Steven Ray Smith __________ You were a baby on the day I met you, and also not, because you had lived already, alone and for yourself already, somewhere invisible to me that I could never visit. But because you didn’t know how to hunt or to hide from those…
Read MoreHow My Dog Smells Dean Flowerfeld __________ The world is a whorl of wonderful whiffsfor a doggie like me who lives by his sniffs and the wind is awash in a welter of wafts,such succulent scents on the breeze are aloft: the sweet and the sour, the savory and musty,the…
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