Adam 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 MoreKimberly Ann Southwick __________ This Line Will Keep You Safe after Julia Brandenberger’s “Funeral For Expectations” | January 2, 2020 | Philadelphia, PA The women in the corridor with merry, choking laughter,are be-lit behind a door closed to us, caved in darkness,our backs against the studio walls, socked feet on…
Read MoreWe Are Cut From Shorter Days Anthony Okpunor __________ you will speak through the mouth of a sea& know i’m not dead. one day the sun will rise on your tongue& give a language of salt and mercury. i will be there in the water, lockinga song of grief in…
Read MoreLast 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 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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