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…
Peter AmosNIGHTS WHEN I’M TIRED Mom fell asleep around Labor Day that year and the slumber was deep. Dad bagged the recycling, drove to school on weekdays, spread his papers across the living room floor in the afternoons, and asked…
Emily SteinbergMen O Pause For over a thousand years, menopause has been treated as an illness, something to be feared and fixed. Emily Steinberg’s Men O Pause visualizes the grim history of the treatment and attitudes towards menopausal women throughout…
Kathryn Silver-HajoTHOUSAND-WATT SMILE Sara nearly dropped the peeling tin box of Grandpa Teddy’s things when she pulled out the yellowed, cracked black and white of Grandma Bea sitting on the wheel hub of their ‘38 Chevy, chubby ankles crossed. Sara…
In the first sentence, "Jay, his stepfather—who was nice enough, if not a little too subservient"--does it seem like the 'not' isn't needed? In other words, the meaning is that Jay IS a little too subservient, so it should say "nice enough, if a little too subservient." Should we query the author on this?
Tricia ParkTHE DISTANCE FROM HERE TO THERE The other evening, on my way home from a violin recital in Gangnam, I missed a step and fell in the Seoul subway station. I caught myself on my hand, twisting my wrist.…
Sara DavisTWO STUDENTS WALK INTO A BAR I can’t believe you haven’t heard this story. I feel like we tell it all the time! Maybe not in class, no, but grad school isn’t all lectures and bad coffee. We do…
J. M. ParkerAUTOPSY OR, THE HOUSE OF YOUTH (LIKE A RUSSIAN MOUNTAIN) I kept a hand-written note, on creased but still clean typing paper, wedged into the pages of a book Dear Sweetheart― You’ve got the tv program and today’s…
Sarah SchiffLAB RAT VENGEANCE In the neuroscience lab where I worked as an undergraduate intern, we were studying what makes mice experience the sensation of fullness. You can just imagine who’d want access to those findings—the know-how to regulate people’s…
In the 1st section, 3rd sentence: "In fact, I would have swung for the gut, stole his air so he had to collapse into me." --Grammatically, this should be "stolen," but the author may have chosen the more colloquial "stole." Query?
Also in the 1st section, 4th paragraph, I fixed the em dash to make it consistent.
In the last section, first paragraph, I'm having second thoughts about this line: "with a first name and last initial like a partial staking. An object, a tool, more stamp than identity."
Staking or stalking? I think "staking," as in a claim, but want to make sure.
Sherry ShahanFROM THE HEART OF OLD MAGAZINES: Collages Feeling shipwrecked in 2020, I began ripping words from the heart of old magazines. My scissors were like me, rusty and dull. The glue, too thick. My collages resembled drawings found in…
Chelsey Clammer29 REASONS WHY THERE WILL BE NO REPLY You didn’t visit me for fifteen months. I know, pandemic and whatnot, and we live three states apart, but why isn’t your lover in your “circle”? When we did finally see…
James DiazBUILDING BOATS, WRITING POEMS When building boats, we try to craft something that will hold us aloft, a durable vessel that can bear and balance the weight, and hold out against the waves. Some boats are perhaps more beautiful…
Interview by Michael McCarthyA Conversation with Amy Koppelman, Author of A MOUTHFUL OF AIR (Two Dollar Radio) I spoke with Amy Koppelman as she was finishing making her first book, A Mouthful of Air, into a feature film. Though she…
Dear June, A few weeks ago my wife and I were watching Noah, our two-year-old grandson, at our house. He was playing with some pots and pans on the floor of our pantry room, totally absorbed. I stepped out of…