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GROUNDED, by K.S.M.

Fiction by KSM GROUNDED It wasn’t possible that Gerard had written the note himself. First of all, he’d never spent much time in the Art Books section. And second, it wasn’t his handwriting. But when he pulled the book off…

GHOST ROOFERS, by Claudia Monpere

Flash by Claudia Monpere GHOST ROOFERS Their bid is high. But I sign. I’ve never worked with a ghost company before. And Ghost Roofers offers a special product; on scalding days their roofs spray cool mist through ceilings and walls.…

SUICIDES, by N.D. Brown

Fiction by N.D. Brown SUICIDES Mitchell moved into his mother’s double-wide in time to sign up for Freedom Run High School’s summer football program. The sprints were called “suicides,” and when seen from overhead, the football players’ movement along the…

NATIVITY, by Bobby Crace

Flash by Bobby Crace NATIVITY The nativity scene between Denny’s and CVS is still up in February. A strip of grass has forced the characters into a straight line behind a Cabbage Patch Doll strapped to an Igloo cooler.  Mary…

LEMON CAKE, by Kevin Spaide

Flash by Kevin Spaide LEMON CAKE The cat watches as you eat a piece of the lemon cake you bought this morning even though you know how to make lemon cake and have, in fact, made hundreds of them. At…

BIRTHDAY PARTY, by Preeti Talwai

Flash Nonfiction by Preeti TalwaiBIRTHDAY PARTY The craziest thing about a C-section is that you don’t feel anything from the chest down, but you can still move and speak just fine.  So you make small talk with the nurses who…

CARAVAGGIO’S WOMEN, by Simon Parker

Poetry by Simon Parker CARAVAGGIO’S WOMEN In the queue for Caravaggio flesh is made marmoreal a woman in a white dress our baroque beacon who should guide us to a wedding feast where gods are drunk and fallen angels are…

THE DOCTOR SWEEPS IN, by Louella Lester

Flash by Louella Lester THE DOCTOR SWEEPS IN On his way past the assistant’s desk he claws my folder from the counter, calls my name, hovers silently for a minute, then lands his oversized feathered feet in front of me,…

BOX OF AIR, by Katrina Roberts

Visual Poetry by Katrina Roberts BOX OF AIR Katrina Roberts’s books of poems include Likeness (full-color); Underdog; Friendly Fire; The Quick; How Late Desire Looks; and Lace (chapbook); she’s editor of Because You Asked. Her visual/verbal work appears in publications such as BOMB, Ilanot Review,…

FOUR MICROS, by Barbara Diehl

Flash by Barbara Westwood Diehl FOUR MICROS Scavengers We end our marriage with burnt toast. We end our marriage with cold casserole. We end our marriage with undercooked meat. Untouched. Before, we buttered the toast and ate the blackened bread.…

LEAVING THE STAGE, by Terri Lewis

Fiction by Terri Lewis LEAVING THE STAGE When night fell and lights dimmed, the dream of watching my last play gathered in the shadows and I’d begin to moan. My anguish wasn’t stage fright—that was for the actors—but for the…

BRIDGES, by Marc Kaufman

Fiction by Marc Kaufman BRIDGES Rebekah Aronson’s bridge was next. It didn’t look like much, though several of us in class, the 7th graders that also knew her from Hebrew school, had our prints all over it. Fearing we hadn’t…

OFF-SCRIPT, by Andrew Lorenzen

Fiction by Andrew V. Lorenzen OFF-SCRIPT Long before the fall, before the riots and the unrest, long before it all really began, I experienced a bout of insomnia while backpacking through Southern Asia and began to illegally phone bank voters…

BEDS, by Aurora Bonner

Flash Nonfiction by Aurora Bonner BEDS The cabin is cold after the fire dies mid-night. I watch the rise and fall of my father’s steady breath, just beyond his red whiskers and long black hair. My brother is nestled with…

AFTER-BIRTH, by Sam Kerbel

Poetry by Sam Kerbel AFTER-BIRTH There is much grief tied to us Not unlike a hospital cot Where a new father sleeps If he is lucky And finds himself realizing Not for the first time He authored something He knows…

SHELTER, by Jen Bryant

Flash Nonfiction by Jen Bryant SHELTER My first January in Ohio, the river’s surface froze solid. Patches of dirty snow accumulated in parking lots. The sky, the snow, the asphalt: everything was a dull, unrelenting gray. After brewing my morning…

FAIRVIEW, by Harris Quinn

Fiction by Harris Quinn FAIRVIEW I’ve won more than I’ve lost, though I’ve kept no ledger. I’ve lost big, but I’ve won big too. I took 7,000 dollars from a New York man in Aiken after the Masters one year.…

HEARTBEATS, by Daniel Coudriet

Poetry by Daniel Coudriet HEARTBEATS I am a hospital that missed a war that grew outside. I’ve stolen appliances from empty homes. I’m sorry for all the songs I didn’t complete. It’s hard to have a relationship with a room.…

OLD FRIENDS, by Davis MacMillan

Fiction by Davis MacMillan OLD FRIENDS A long time ago, when we were little or maybe medium-sized boys, a man did yoga in the park near my house. This was strange: yoga was known but it was not really the…

RED-HEADED MIKE FINNEGAN, by Jake Stimmel

Fiction by Jake StimmelRED-HEADED MIKE FINNEGAN “I did not take your boat, Mr. Roosevelt, because I wanted to steal something, no indeed; when I took that vessel I was laboring under the impression, ‘Die dog or eat the Hachette.’” —Letter…

QUAKER SPEAK FOR DEAD, by Cal Freeman

Poetry by Cal Freeman QUAKER SPEAK FOR DEAD The dreams are different when I sleep beside Lake Erie. I can’t remember them in much detail. Momentous, ethereal, and cruel, they bring my father back at 4am, his predawn writing hour;…

GOATVILLE, by Susan Israel

Flash by Susan Israel GOATVILLE Ambrose Bunch’s backyard was a tangle of weeds that his wife Florence kept harping on him about, so he went out, ostensibly to buy a lawn mower, and came home with a goat. “Flo, meet…

THE COMMUNIST, by Sahil Mehta

Flash by Sahil Mehta THE COMMUNIST The crimson tattoo, a hammer and sickle, was located about an inch south and half an inch to the right of his belly button.  His penis, when enlarged by interest or intrigue, would point…

PERFECT CONDUCTOR, by Dara Goodale

Poetry by Dara Goodale PERFECT CONDUCTOR when he was eight   he stuck a fork       into an electric outlet he fried the nerve endings     in his right thumb his sense of touch    swept away…

BEFORE I HELD YOU, by Anne Anthony

Flash Nonfiction by Anne Anthony BEFORE I HELD YOU Before I held you, your father held you cradled in his arms—mine couldn’t, strapped securely to the operating table; before he held you, you flipped, you slippery fish dropping thud-like into…

THE MONARCH, by Mary Sauer

Fiction by Mary Sauer THE MONARCH Cutting around and behind the main drag in Excelsior Springs, we choose the road often used to bypass the lights and traffic with two sharp, blind curves one after the other. Dad takes each…

TURD-L, by Meg Pokrass

Flash by Meg Pokrass TURD-L There was the time my actress sister taught me how to take a bath like a TV star. Ran the bathwater hot so that it felt as if my skin would glow like a pink…

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