Contagion by Mary Mandeville

April 16, 2020

Before, we knew where he was. This time, birth mom also had no idea; he’d run away from us all.

Beauty by Steven Kleinman

April 15, 2020

A little spittle of pink
fell from the bag of organs

High Mom by Danielle Privitera

April 14, 2020

When my son is old enough, he won’t care, because it saved our family.

Cannibal by Jennifer Sinor

April 9, 2020

I am eating myself, slowly, from the outside in. Salted skin and blood.

What to Look for by Cassandra Rockwood-Rice

April 8, 2020

You’d pull a jackknife from your / shirt pocket and shave the bark, shallow then deep

Shock, Honey by Megan Goss

April 7, 2020

Mother tries to talk, to reassure her eighteen-month-old daughter, but she can’t get her voice loud enough. Baby’s wails keep cutting out.

Contrition is possibly for fools by Mercedes Lawry

April 1, 2020

Nothing is better / than sleep, where you’re anchored. / Otherwise, you tell yourself little / spoonfuls of facts about this life.

Siento By Sarah Capdeville

March 30, 2020

I forgot, when it came down to it, that I existed.

1989 by Lee Ware

March 26, 2020

My mother always says: I wish you would have known your father before the accident.

Eclogue Domestica by Samuel Piccone

March 18, 2020

I don’t tell you how much it hurts when you finally open / your blouse and speak of tiny bones—

Three Poems by Rick Bursky

March 18, 2020

We take turns dying. / Goddamn it, I think to myself, goddamn it.

Just Waiting on a Dude by Michael McAllister

March 16, 2020

He pats the bed and you slide in. You follow his lead—you always will.

JAC by Joseph Rakowski

March 13, 2020

There isn’t a code to yell when a 12-year-old tries to commit suicide in his cell. You just yell help.

Two Poems by Emma Murray

March 11, 2020

People who talk shit about trailer parks / have never listened to the Titanic sound- / track in a double wide—

A Man To Occupy My Mind by Elizabeth Morgan

March 10, 2020

I call them my grown-up friends because these women have translated all of that A-Honor-Roll energy into successful careers as lawyers, engineers, and doctors, while I recently ate more slices of deep dish pizza than my brother and dad combined.

Josh & Rach 4ever by Rachel Ratner

March 9, 2020

Perhaps their bodies sensed the heartache ahead, the disappointment that waited—that they couldn’t hold onto this version of reality. So they let go of it. All over the theater floor.