Brenda TaulbeeREGENERATION I want to put my head down …………………….and sleep like I used to know …………………….………..how to sleep. …………………….I want my brain to be less like a rained out game …………………….of hopscotch, the lines all running. I never want…
Andrea Lynn KoohiCLEANING HOUSE “Right there,” I say, pointing to the spider on the wall before leaving the kitchen. I’d rather not kill things, so I make my husband do it. My only complaint is that he doesn’t kill faster.…
Julie BeneshSHOW TUNES My ex- husband texting quotations, marked: “I know all about your standards…” Because July: ………….Music Man. last month was June’s ………….Carousel bustin’ out all over. (If I… ) Next month: ………….State Fair (Iowa, again, my home state).…
Virginia PetrucciREFLECTIONS April 2012 I do one bump right before I pee and then another after I’ve washed my hands. I suck the lingering white crumbs off the tip of my apartment key like a rapacious baby. I was anticipating…
Benedicte GrimaPUSHING AWAY THE SCUM I have no recollection of being bathed before the age of five. Doubtless, long forgotten nannies took charge of that. But growing up in an old farmhouse with a French mother and an unreliable well…
Christine MullerADULT SWIMS Someone must have peed in the pool. From the vigor of the lifeguards’ arms waving us out, I figured that someone must have peed a lot. I tried to keep my head above water as I made…
Natalie ChristensenYET SOMETHING DEEPLY FAMILIAR: Photographs Photographer Natalie Christensen has an inimitable, and enchanting, focus on the exploration of the more banal peripheral landscapes that often go unnoticed by the casual observer. “I quickly became aware that these isolated moments…
Kelley WhiteI AM LOSING MY HANDS. The right hand middle finger middle joint swollen. I can almost see it. And hurt. Three times I try to open a bottle and hurt. Struggle. Will I need to ask for help? And…
Eric Scot TryonTHE UNDERSIDE It was an exceptionally hot Saturday in April when my sister and I zombied our way through the tedious chore of packing Mom’s house. A twisted, cruel part of the grieving process, but we refused to…
Maggie HillHOOPS We’re going to jail for Christmas. Sing Sing. Ossining, New York. My brother Bobby and I ride in the back seat, the both of us held captive by images of branch, stone, sky going in the other direction.…
Bree SmithSHELTER First, the wound has to clot. In the hemostasis phase, blood vessels constrict to stop blood flow. Platelets fuse together to form a seal. Coagulation binds the wound on a molecular level. If a wound doesn’t clot, it…
Eliot LiA PLACE OF COMFORT Dustin, whose adolescent spine curved gently to the right. He hardly ever wore his corrective brace to school because it was so obvious under his polo shirt. Whose bedroom equaled comfort, Phoebe Cates on the…
Margaret MacInnisENOUGH When my infant daughter turns her face from my nipple and stiffens in my arms, I panic, imagining my lungs filling with water. I’m drowning on my living room floor, where I sit topless, still in my pajama…
Grace KennedyMAKING A CAKE Today is my father’s birthday and I am making a chocolate Guinness cake. I am making this cake by hand because I do not have a stand mixer and do not want to spend two-hundred and…
Gabriella SouzaLITTLE FEET Her mother used a foot mask. The package promised that in five days, the skin on her mother’s feet would molt, bubble white, and peel off in shreds, ziiiiiip. The daughter swore her mother’s eventual demise began…
Karin Wraley BarbeeTEENAGE ASTRONOMY Men watch her from her ceiling, Cepheus and Hercules, pressed there by a girl on the top bunk. Their luminous hands connect the dots of her now teenage body. The screen glows like the Northern Lights…
Lori Sambol BrodyPAS DE DEUX Alexander calls me to the front of the beginning pas de deux class to demonstrate positions. A tour de promenade: he coaches me to grip his hand and lift my leg in an arabesque, then…
Peter GrandboisBEND AND TOUCH THE GRASS Though the house is quiet another day nearly ………….snuffed out Shadows slipping through a bear’s skull, ………….half-buried Deer prints breaking the blossoming mud ………….at the water’s edge The cricket’s chirp limping through ………….the undecided…
Cassie BurkhardtTHE TRUTH When I was in eighth grade, I had a terrible eating disorder and was hospitalized for most of it. When that didn’t work, I was admitted to a treatment center in Utah called The Center for Change,…
Cassie BurkhardtSPONTANEOUS BUNGEE JUMP IN SWITZERLAND Twenty-six years old. Pink cutoffs. Barefoot. Day trip to Lugano with friends when we see a sign with an arrow: James Bond Golden Eye Cliff Jump. No one else wants to do it, but…
Amy SavageWHY DON’T YOU SHUT UP, WHY DON’T YOU SPEAK UP? “What do you call the men? Ballerinos?” Sophie’s mother asked at intermission, frowning. “Some of them need another layer down there. You can see all their parts.” She ran…
Dhaea KangMASQUERADE We’ve just arrived at prom and already I want to leave. Should we take a photo? Chris asks. I clock the long line, my classmates barely recognizable without their signature Hollister t-shirts and hoodies, skin-tight low rise jeans.…
Kim MagowanCONCERNING RITA HAYWORTH “So what do you do?” George says, then winces. “Sorry! Reductive question.” “At least you waited until we each had a glass of wine.” Cora examines her hands, the body part she used to be most…
Maddie BaxterTHE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW My left leg is an eroded coastline. Squeeze my thigh to feel the plateau of un-muscle. Shaving my legs for the first time at 13 was pressing a blade to rubber. If my…
Beth Kephart and Stephanie WeaverWANTED: TWO WRITERS MUSE ON THE ART OF SAYING NO They want you. They want you for free. Because you are wise, they say. Because you know things. Because they want their people to know your…
Poetry by Eric Morales-Franceschini, reviewed by Juniper Jordan Cruz AUTOPSY OF A FALL (Newfound Press) Autopsy of a Fall by Eric Morales-Franceschini is many things at once: nostalgic and bitter, analytical and volatile, epic and intimate. It is a masterful…
Dear June, Since the start of this pandemic, I have eaten more and exercised less, and have gone from a comfortable size 10 to a tight size 16. In July and early August, when the world seemed to be opening…
Interview by Kathryn KulpaFive and a Half Questions for Michelle Ross on SHAPESHIFTING (Stillhouse Press) Michelle Ross has published short fiction in Cleaver (“Lessons,” Issue 13; “My Husband is Always Losing Things,” Issue 23; “Night Vision,” with Kim Magowan, Issue…
Tom GammarinoREAL ROT: My Newfound Impatience with Antiheroes Something is wrong with me. Last week, when I tried to re-watch one of my favorite TV series of all time, Breaking Bad, I made it through just two episodes before calling it…
Kari Ann EbertHARNESSING WILDNESS: THE PRACTICE OF POETIC LEAPS To avoid stagnation and cliché, one of the tools in a poet’s arsenal is to conjure associations that bring energy to the poem and add complex layers. These associations can show…
Fiction by Olivia Tapiero, translated by Kit Schluter, reviewed by Dylan Cook PHOTOTAXIS (Nightboat Books) There’s something refreshingly laid-back about Olivia Tapiero’s take on apocalyptic fiction. Most novels in the genre come off a bit preachy, warning us page after…
Poetry by Theadora Siranian, reviewed by Juniper Jordan Cruz SHE (Seven Kitchen Press) Theadora’s Siranian’s chapbook, She, is violently intoxicating and sobering at the same time. In investigating loss and trauma, she chooses to present the messy over the meditative.…
Capitalized "Scrabble" on second reference (themed Scrabble).
There was an extra space between the July and August paragraphs, inconsistent with how other changes in date were treated, so I deleted the extra space.
Chris VaughanWEIRD, WEIRD WEST: Collages All of these works are part of an ongoing series of paper collages, collectively called Weird, Weird West. The Weird West series of collages began with a ménage à trois that I found immediately menacing…
John CullenSTINGRAY My sister and I recall that old Stingray while we sit a vigil in the critical care unit. She melts into the vinyl cushions and I lean sideways, balanced like a circus acrobat one moment before falling. My…
Sarah FrelighOUR FATHERS Our fathers rise at five and whistle out the door carrying thermoses of black coffee and lunches our mothers have packed for them—bags of corn chips that fat up the blood and sandwiches made of meat and…
Regan PuckettLEFTOVERS I almost had a husband once, but we never made it to the wedding. Now, he’s someone else’s husband, with a baby announcement on Facebook and a house two towns over. Our last date, we went to an…
Tingyu LiuMONOCULAR Remembering, still: Sunday egg scrambles, green …………..peppers and sharp cheddar adorning …………..our fingers, coffee pot chuckling. Tilt and: our slip of a room …………..in Havana, stumbling on the party downstairs, sweet …………..cake kiss, warm cola in colored cups.…
Frankie McMillanSEVEN STARTS TO THE WOMAN WHO WENT OVER THE FALLS IN A BARREL Annie Edson Taylor, 1901 1 Picture the cold dark inside of the barrel. Annie feeling her way over the padded mattress to a harness hanging from…
Melody WilsonSILVER FALLS We have driven east this bright afternoon, the two of us, young parents on a break from entropy. I am drowning in something I can’t define and the day reels out like un-spliced frames of someone else’s…
Mike ItayaTHE OREGON TRAIL 1884 Today I am eleven years born! We McClelland Family, Pa, Ma, Sis, and me (plus Joseph, our Mormon frontier scout), strike out from Independence, Missouri. The Oregon Trail is bright before us, our ox-pulled Conestoga…
Sara MaeBIOLUMINESCENCE The pregnancy scare skulks through bay grasses. It tips us over like cows & drains our peach liqueur. Flashlights under the bleachers illuminating grope & teen & tooth & wick, a stick rattling the jellyfish to yield shine.…
Melody WilsonSURVIVOR GUILT My sister slept in the laundry room, the door fastened by a cinch strap and a nail. She painted the cinderblock walls purple. Some nights tires would slide into the gravel drive and it was my job…
Gay DeganiA FEW NECESSARY HOUSEHOLD RULES FOR SYBIL Don’t talk. Don’t say a word. Keep your mouth shut. Unless he talks first. And if he talks first, listen carefully. Listen for his tone of voice, look up to see if…
Kimm Brockett StammenJUMPING OFF THE END OF THE WORLD Five years ago my niece and I stood at The End of the World, an infamous diving cliff near Kualanui Point just outside Kona, Hawaii. Far below us the ravenous Pacific…
Tom LaichasFLOUNDER i The fingertips know things. Their ridged whorls …. confess… the … whole.. body’s whereabouts. The fingernails know things too, and knew them even before the teeth. ii The left hand arrives like a visitant, held one arm’s length…
Kelly GrayTELL ME HOW TO BUILD AN AUDIENCE WHILE YOU MOVE YOUR ARMS AND LEGS LIKE SERPENTS & SCARVES IN THE DARK OF A CATTLE RANCH When I was a kid, I wanted to be famous. I don’t know what…
Danny Cooperflats hot sand and grainy glass yours is packed like clay me i grab some seashells and scrape to the bone doe deer’s ribs on hard cement honey fur still clean and pristine same wet pink thread of mine…
Anna Farro HendersonPACKING FOR AN OVERNIGHT AT THE STATE CAPITOL Minnesota State Capitol May 2018 the last weekend of the legislative session No one likes conflict, but with the smack of a fist I am a million particles of brilliant…
Nikolaj VolgushevMODERNA My shoulder hurt a lot after the second dose and the following morning I found a thorny vine had sprouted from beneath the Band-Aid. It clambered down my upper arm in an emerald coil. I drove back to…