I never learned. In a year’s time, Mother, Buck, and the chicken coop were gone. Aunt Betty bought chickens already drawn at the meat counter. I thought a lot about beheadings.
Read More
Door Girl by Candace Jane Opper
The whole institution seemed to exist by and for men, particularly male musicians, and more particularly male musicians who’d fully bought into the fantasy of rock and roll, which essentially resembles the kind of up-all-night debauchery romanticized in Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical Almost Famous.
Read More
The Only Thing Left by Thomas Price
I know it seems odd that that long, strong bone in the leg can think, let alone feel, but it was still part of me, and as it lay in the bed, night into day and day into night, all it could wonder was, with so much of me gone, why hadn’t it been enough?
Read More
A Normal Interview with Jubi Arriola-Headley by Arielle K. Jones
Kink has a more expansive meaning. … Kink as just that, sexual kinkiness. Kink as, the kink in Black folks’ hair. Kink as, a kink in the system. Kink as in, broke. So, I play off all the different ways that kink is a thing that we think about.
Read More
Brief Histories by Joe Bonomo
These images commingle now in memory as my first headlong descent into the strangeness of grief.
Read MoreThree Poems by Sonia Feldman
the small birds stepping like dames / through the green aisles, / and the strawberry plants blushing / on the garden floor-- / I've never known another place / as animal for longing.
Read More
Black Cactus by Marc Tweed
The sun bathes the front of the shop in a new white light as he readies to open. A small gray bird has made its way in somehow, slamming itself repeatedly against the big spotless window and he uses a broom to gently prod it out the propped-open door to freedom.
Read More
Obituary (For my Cousin) by Emma Kaiser
He tried to form a band with a group that included my high school boyfriend, but kicked them all out of his house when they didn’t take the music as seriously as he did.
Read More
A Man Explodes by John Honkala
They want answers. Did the man explode? Can a man explode? Why have you said nothing? Why is the press silent too? The man with the megaphone climbs a fence and calls to the police station.
Read More
Purple Flowers by Kira K. Homsher
I keep hoping a storm will come and sweep away all this clutter, all these dollhouse messes.
Read More
One Last Time by Cathy Luna
Memory doesn’t work like writing, one word at a time, one ant in a line. It’s more like a science-class filmstrip on fire in the projector, one image blooming orange-white and black into another.
Read More
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Two Poems by Nicholas Gruber
i brush my cheek with a lover so bewildered by kissing, he detonates / my clenched gristle instead. in red honey clothes, i am similar flesh / & you know new lovers: always making do.
Read More
A Normal Interview with Leah Silvieus and Lee Herrick, by Bradley Samore
For me, the way that I’ve learned to access faith or my relationship with God is primarily through poetry. It is this dynamic, ongoing process, and I think that that’s the way that faith has to live in me.
Read MoreTwo Poems by Robin LaMer Rahija
we forced open small holes and planted / their delicate bodies, covered / the white network / of translucent roots. / We watered them and waited.
Read More
Bulletproof by Bethany Marcel
Monica felt her soul leaving her body. It traveled up into the organic, free-range rafters, then looked down at Monica, and laughed and laughed.
Read More
Nature Morte by Michelle Orabona
Get out of the house, they said. Do something. Make something. Be something. They knew, they understood. But it was time, they said. We’re just trying to help, just looking out for you, just trying to help you move on, carry on, get through it, over it, past it.
Read More
Two Poems by Chris Haven
They are relic and untouchable. They move older than direction, under timelapse skies.
Read More
Two Poems by Sarah Wetzel
we forced open small holes and planted / their delicate bodies, covered / the white network / of translucent roots. / We watered them and waited.
Read More
Onomatopoeia by Robert Yune
Mostly, I marveled at the sound the ring made against the floor—it was a persistent, golden tone that hovered in the air while splitting it. Even decades after I’ve forgotten Damien’s face and voice, I can almost see that sound, can picture that particular vibration in the air.
Read More
Something About Mangoes by Courtney Lund O’Neil
I stopped by the gas station to pick up Christie’s favorite slim Capri cigarettes, two packs. When you were dying, cigarettes and calories didn’t matter.
Read More