Fiction by Jeff GabelSPITFIRE My mother-in-law believes in signs. She believes in synchronicity and premonition. This wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for her obsession with death. When Neil and I told her we were naming our girl after…
Flash by Jeffrey G. MossYELLOW It is a late October afternoon, darkness coming on quick, and Phyllis DeLuna, one of three widowed sisters who live across the street, is standing on her front stoop waving me over. “We’re putting the…
Poetry by Christopher David Rosales[ABUELITA PLANTING JARS AT BASE IN RATTLING CANE,] Abuelita planting jars at base in rattling cane,whisking lilies, to allude your curve. A pedal in rotation only hints, spoked light, foot flat in utterance, shoestring. To you…
Fiction by Lindsey Godfrey Eccles WHEN MOUNTAINS WERE PEOPLE Long ago when mountains were people there were two sisters, each so tall her forehead touched the sky, and each so beautiful that anyone who saw her stared in wonder. Between…
Poetry by Elly Katz DUPLEX dark is darker than I remember was it a dream or a memory? rescue me from these shadows on the undersurface of spiral threads nude twists and turns mounting dismounting that called off glowing ground…
Poetry by Bradley J. Fest2023.32 Soaring amaranthis getting you down on the floor again? Diane Seuss’s long line’ll [1] set things right while hazarding the new kinds of loneliness. The body that is your body is and always has been…
Nonfiction by Margo SanabriaHARD TIMES, RACE, AND CLASSIC MOVIES By the time I was ten I was a classic movies devotee. It still makes me smile to think of an African-American child with cat-eye glasses, three pigtails, two in back…
Fiction by Krista Puttler ORIGIN STORY Mama, where do stories come from? They come from a dog’s ear. No, they don’t! They come from your fingertips! You mean fingernails. No, I don’t. Pens, pencils, keyboards… Blood, pain, anticipation… What are…
Poetry by John Minczeski LITTLE ODE TO TAKING THE DOG OUT The last trip to the yard for the night, temperature not minus anything just now. The day, having lost its train of thought, clung to twilight like a lamprey.…
Flash by Jessica KlimeshTHE BODY SHOP I find a pair of arms in my size and put them on, then exchange my middle-aged ears for some keener ones since Lyle says I don’t listen, says it’s just one of my…
Flash by Coleman BigelowBECAUSE AT LEAST WE DRINK FRESH ROAST When we first dropped out of design school, coffee was our everything—the intoxicating grounds providing just the jittering jolt our imaginations required. Each sip sending us bareback on burros ascending…
Flash by Kiely Todd RoskaGOD’S LOVE IS TWO WOMEN FROM A QUILTING GUILD IN MISSOULA, MONTANA You fly halfway across the country to clean your mom’s house and plan her funeral. She died by suicide a week and a half…
Poetry by Herman BeaversTRUE NORTH Sidereal & reassuring, lightattired in the color of plums.Aching with sap, the trees’throb of sweetness’s likea ghost vexing me. Grass browningunder its pointed stare,a ground hog, back curved amongthe sycamore leaves, presses closeagainst the gravel,…
Nonfiction by Judith Serin THE HOUSE WITH WALLS OF HONEY in memory of Herbert Yee and 39 years together The house with walls of honey. Bees swarmed into the house and we let them stay. Their buzzing lulled our sleep.…
Fiction by Sinclair Cabocel THE ARMAGEDDON SURF CLUB When the trumpets sounded, Monica was propped up on her elbows, watching Mateo shred from the sandy shore. The other beachgoers swiveled their heads, as if they might find some passing band…
Poetry by Anders HowertonAI, THE END We had done it before with skylines,migrations, lasagna, and this too was alive, a chamber of neurons, layered like we are. Everyone ever known now looms before us. It rose like a scaffold, part…
Clifford Thompson ON THE OTHER HAND… (PART 2) Read ON THE OTHER HAND… (Part 1) Clifford Thompson’s books include What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man’s Blues (2019), which Time magazine called one of the most anticipated…
Nonfiction by Michelle Ephraim, reviewed by Benjamin SelesnickGREEN WORLD: A TRAGICOMIC MEMOIR OF LOVE AND SHAKESPEARE (University of Massachusetts Press) The genre of second generation Holocaust survivor memoirs has grown vast with contributions ranging from graphic novels like Maus to…
Nonfiction by Nicole Treska, reviewed by Monica WendelWONDERLAND (Simon & Schuster) Some memoirs feel like stories told in a therapist’s office. The white noise machine, a box of tissues, predictable healing arcs. Other memoirs can feel braggy, like the writer…
Poetry by Lisa Grunberger, reviewed by Angelina SciollaFOR THE FUTURE OF GIRLS (Kelsay Books) Think about the first time you ran your hands over a relief map or globe—likely as a child in elementary school—and consider how your palms encountered…
M. LinA PERSONAL ARCHAEOLOGY OF SOUND AS TOLD IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER Honorable Mention of the 2024 Cleaver Emerging Artist Award 1989: 乾你娘 – ‘gan4 ni3 niang2’ – ‘gan’ in the 4th tone meaning fuck. As in ‘you motherfucker’ If…
Oona PatrickTOSTA MISTA/MIXED TOAST On my first trip to Portugal, I ate tosta mista, or mixed toast, nearly every day because it was the only sandwich I knew how to pronounce. The mista distinguishes your order from cheese toast or…
Alex RostTHE BLUE PEN I’m writing this with a blue pen. Traditionally, and consistently, I’ve always been a black pen kind of guy. I think most of us are. You can say that about a lot of things. You can…
Cameron MacKenzieCATSUIT Every time Ally’s mom’s boyfriend fed his ball python, he played “Mouth for War,” by Pantera. My friend Tyler and I would squat beside the snake’s aquarium under the hot light and watch the little mouse as it…
Holaday MasonSUMMONED TO PERFORM AT ALL HOURS OF THE NIGHT 1. It’s so late I can hear my grandmother, Margery, slap an ace-high straight down on linoleum, light a Doral, become smoke. We are so wet again, our pool hair…
A.L. GordonPRECIOUS THINGS Winner of the 2024 Cleaver Emerging Artist Award “Precious Things” by A.L. Gordon was one of those submissions that wowed me by how unafraid and emotionally raw it is in its subject, while still being beautifully crafted…
Marj HahneFRAGMENTS FOR AN IDENTICAL TWIN Cleave. Ends with leave. Let’s begin there. Because there includes here. Whenever you leave, I sense my own absence. Right before the last time you left, you screamed, “You got what you wanted! I’m…
Third Place, Duality Creative Nonfiction Contest, 2024 Like all good personal essays, this one brings the humility and wisdom of experience to bear on a look at a past self, with sympathy for that self. The boy of the title…
Michael CzyzniejewskiHER HEART WAS A CHIPMUNK She said her heart was a chipmunk, said it on our first date. I figured she was being poetic, saying something like My heart is a chipmunk to mean she herself was like a…
First Place, Duality Creative Nonfiction Contest, 2024 We are made to feel for the central character in this sad, moving work through the way place is evoked—both the place she is in and the one to which she aches to…
Second Place, Duality Creative Nonfiction Contest, 2024 This short gem manages to tell us almost nothing, and yet everything, about the girls of the title, capturing the complex dance between person and environment. The descriptions of what these girls pass…
Luanne CastleANOTHER WEEK LEFT OF GRAND ROUNDS WITH DR. WEBBER My eyes lock onto Dr. Webber’s seed pearl spectacle cord as she launches clinical phrases from the patient report. After our first day trailing her, I bought a similar cord,…
Clifford Thompson ON THE OTHER HAND… Origins of My Comics As a young boy growing up in Washington, DC, in the early 1970s, I fell in love with the comic strip Peanuts, which left two indelible marks on me: a…
David L. UpdikeREUNION My kindergarten class’s fiftieth reunion is underway. It’s being hosted by two of our classmates, Mike Finnegan and Linda Haupt, who ended up dating in high school and getting married shortly after graduation. They’re now grandparents and…
David WatersFIVE HEARTS Physician Notes Patient Name: Barbara Fields Chief Complaint: chronic yearning History of Present Illness: This pleasant 38-year-old, well-developed, well-nourished woman—looking younger than her stated age—comes to the Emergency Department complaining of unrequited desire. She is oriented as…
Magda Andrews-HokeWAG On my twenty-fifth birthday I saw a greyhoundin a little red jacket being walked by a womanin a Scandinavian sweater. I said aloud,“Is this what it’s like to grow older?” I canmake no head, no tail of it:…
Micah GrotegutONO CHICKEN Scrolling through the news, I clicked on a video headlined “Historic Lahaina Burnt Down in Wildfire.” I listened to the reporter describe the ashy remains of once-standing homes and shells of vehicles strewn on apocalyptic roads, the…
Ho-Ming So DenduangrudeeFAIRYTALE Once upon a time, one of my children assured me that “America” was not just the name of a country but the name of the world. My children are young and have no memory of Thailand, where…
Cassie BurkhardtTHREE FLASH ON MOTHERHOOD MUD KITCHEN Dirt is the bane of my existence, but my kids love it—can’t resist it, never met a mud puddle they didn’t immediately want to wade in barefoot. All I see is laundry. We…
Hart Vetter SLAPPED “Just let it rise,” said Aaron. He’d had it. My son and I had schlepped over two dozen filled buckets out the basement up the steps to the front door and dumped them down the driveway, mercifully…
Erika KrouseI FEEL LIKE I COULD STAND HERE WITH YOU ALL NIGHT AND IT WOULD BE THE WORST NIGHT OF MY LIFE I work at Ye Olde Curio Shoppe downtown. We consign from the community—people bring in old family items…
Amanda GainesTRICH You ask him to wrest his fingers into the base of your hair from behind you. To pull. To undo you, the cartilage of your throat cutting against your taut skin, neck arced like a bridge over stygian…
Coralie LoonTHE WINK Lia woke to the sound of a rooster cawing. Again. The first time, she convinced herself she had imagined it. The sound didn’t belong here, not in the city, not in the suburbs, not even in the…
Lori Miller KaseGUARDING THE NEST The robin eyes us from her nest. All it takes is a ruffling of the papers beside me to send her flying into the nearby redbud trees, angry wings flapping. I sit on the back…
Sarah CarsonMY DAUGHTER’S SCHOOL IS CLOSED AFTER ANOTHER MASS SHOOTING IN AMERICA So I drive us to the zoo in the closest faraway place, and as she skips down the path to the primate house, the entire savannah is her…
Freesia McKeeTender Experiments We Could Conduct Together or Alone after Tyler Friend 1. We could go to Kwik Trip at 9:00 pm and pretend to shop while flirting over chicken tenders and red Gatorade. 2. We could go to Hilltop…
Charles Scott ULYSSES Ned Duncan arrived at the Cincinnati airport and took a taxi to the church in Madisonville where Darrell’s funeral was being held. In New York, in the years before Darrell got sick, they had lived together in…
Jane FeinsodTWO POEMS Apology And what of the child killed in a bathroom. And what of the others. Sorting the bookshelf and bleaching the tub. I worry I’m tumored. I mean that. In socks watching dog walkers. And what of…
Nicole BrogdonTHE POD I never felt enough eyes on me, never enough love. Never enough arms, wrapping round my body. Nor hands, chopping vegetables for soup. Not enough healthy backs, moving my furniture. More hands, putting on clean sheets—floral sheets,…
Kim MagowanTHE BACK NINE The email is from Marianne’s boarding school classmate Harrison McBee, then captain of the lacrosse team, now an investment banker living with his husband in Manhattan; the subject heading is “Sad News.” Reluctantly, Marianne opens it.…