Favonius

Alessio Zanelli
You wonder what else can happen, now that snowdrops spangle the high pastures in the Merla days and you can wade the Great River in mid-Lent. Now that the winter spirits have vanished, fled without notice, to end up annulled in the absolute freeze of outer space. What will the May hay bring along? As you wonder this, and more, ... Read More

All That’s Fit for Letting Go

Heather Rounds
I don’t take up too many pandemic hobbies but one of my distractions from the many kinds of grieving is reading physics books. I fail to understand them for the most part, the content too dense, the words mostly impenetrable. But I like how small it makes me feel. I don’t mind how unsurmountable the sentences are. It reminds me ... Read More

The Zipper

Caroline Bock 
You switch on cable news at lunch, a peanut butter and honey sandwich. You’re watching as much to see what the Anchor is wearing— today, a structured designer A-line white dress. A zipper down the front, a sense of professionalism hinted with sex (the zipper) and then the news—an ex-President, a future President, a war, more candidates, the election is ... Read More

The Witnesses

Edward Belfar
David Mellin was his real name, but we all called him Melon Head.  Junior had hung that cartoonish moniker upon him on the very first day of camp for good reason, in our view.  With a massive ovular head resting uneasily atop a chubby little torso, Melon Head looked like a cartoon character.  He had pale, almost translucent skin, with ... Read More

Aeaea

Michele Evans
[eye-ee-ah] n. a mythological island said to be the home of the goddess-sorceress circe i had no mama to show me round the kitchen for she took her last breath as i took my first. my skin honeyed and caramelized kept me in the big house, away from my own, hidden from kin but not the ruthless one always hovering ... Read More

The Doctor’s Appointment

Shaun McMichael
Hi there, DeVarius. D, okay then. It’s nice to meet you, uhm, D. We have? Well! I don’t
 Let’s see here. Oh, back in October. Sinus infection. That’s right. I thought I remembered you. Well, I’m glad I could fit you in today. That’s what’s nice about being on campus, huh? So. Tell me what the trouble is. I see ... Read More

Emily as I Offered My Tongue as Bookmark

Darren Demaree 
She is ungentle most of the time, but we’re twenty years of her never shelving me. I’m out, ribboning both sides of her curve. I like to be active & wait for her to thwap me into position ... Read More

Mr. Magnetism 

Richard Peabody
lives in the forest gaps where power lines run taller than trees. He soars down these green expanses until he reaches a power station and gets juiced up again, so he can squeeze out sparks, a party trick crowd pleaser. His earliest beginnings were kid’s birthday parties until he melted a cake with the snap of a finger. Mr. Magnetism ... Read More

An Anniversary

Gary Fincke

Before I pull off the four-lane highway, I make sure the shoulder is wide. Amish families live in the area. They drive their buggies along this road, and yet, despite the paved shoulder, I pick a spot where an open field seems level enough to take my right-side tires as insurance. When I open the door, there is plenty of ... Read More

Manon, Christophe, and the Sea

Stephanie Dupal

Whenever Manon awoke from dreams in which she still played for l’OrchĂšstre Symphonique de MontrĂ©al, the feel of the cello lingered between her knees, and the whitecaps of her life—the echoing arcs of before, during, and after the accident—came crashing in her thoughts once more. The instrument remained with her throughout the day like a phantom limb. It was still ... Read More

I mention the deer 

Tina Barry
I preferred my friend’s father. Mine sat silent in cigar smoke, suave in a cheap suit. Hers, a suburban cowboy, weather-worn in plaid flannel, loud with love. “Aw, girl,” he’d say when I visited, patting my cheek, “you’re so darn cute.” On warm evenings, he’d walk with my friend, head bent to listen, one hand holding their mutt’s leash, the ... Read More

THE ODDS 

Sid Gold
for Arnold Gold, 1922-98 I am certain that if I heckled you long enough, chuckling sarcastically, supplying a few particulars, you would eventually recall those final games of one-on-one, the two of us alone in that schoolyard in Rego Park. You brought your A game that day, the lickety-split moves in the paint, the soft touch, playing better than I’d ... Read More

Interview with Anthony Moll

Jona Colson
Anthony Moll is a Queer poet, essayist, and educator. They are the author of Out of Step: A Memoir, a queer coming of age story about their experiences in the army, which won the Lambda Literary Award and the Non/Fiction Collection Prize. Anthony is a Ph.D. candidate in English, and they hold an MFA in creative writing & publishing arts ... Read More

Audition

Greg Jenkins
Characters
BOB GAMBLE A director; about forty
JIM GAPP A would-be actor; mid-twenties
MAN A fellow who may or may not be an actor; about forty
Scene
A room
Time
The Present
... Read More

—4/2    9:10 pm 44Âș Clear

Gerald Wagoner
The lone patrol car rolls. A commercial trash truck idles. Empty trains rattle below. A stranger quick draws a bird on brick. Suspended without suspense, time is elusive in limbo. Unseen bottles clink, clatter into some recycle bin. A woman scrapes her garbage can to the curb. No thrum from the great city. I might be lost in the forest, slogging through an all white ... Read More

Two Poems by Caleigh Shaw

Caleigh Shaw
Appropriate Dress Length

If I was a church-going child in 2021, I’d be able to find a midi-length skirt or dress, past my knees no problem. I could have saved so much time in the Belk dressing room. When I flipped through the Delia’s catalogue, I needed a thirty-three inch dress, but all the cute ones were thirty-two. No need ... Read More

Covenant

Susan Bucci Mockler
The horses thought they were waiting for you to bring them in from the pasture, in from damp night air, where sweet alfalfa, oats, hay, would be, where they always are—the horses names etched in wooden plaques over their stalls: Comet, Midnight, Scarlet, black iron latches securing them in, safely— but they were waiting for you to make them whole ... Read More

Fan Fiction: Paradise Lost

Meredith Sue Willis

The Argument

Sin and Death are guarding the gates of hell when Satan arrives. Sin remembers how she got there, and Satan orders her to open the gates.

– Paradise Lost, Book II

“My babies, oh it hurts!” I cry, as the little hell hounds burst out yet again. They swarm past my face and fly up among the smoky ... Read More

The Northern Lights

Naomi Thiers
stunned me. I wasn’t the same after I stood by a lake, saw white plumes rain and flare like ghost

Shirt

Ken Autrey
My hands have become his: freckles, prominent veins, wrinkles where fingers crook. Oh, how it holds his scent: motor oil,

Two Poems by Monty Jones

Monty Jones
Terms
The affects and the qualia are more than I can manage, I who strive just to keep the light

Senseless Violence

Christian Aguiar

Official and unofficial regrets flitter around, bemoan the way the bullets went, having never tasted life: handmade pasta pressed just

Self Portrait with Tigers

Christian Ward
Tigers slipped out of my hot saké while London quietly exited. Taxis and long winding streets jungled around my ankles.

This Is Why I No Longer Eat Chinese Food in November 

Paul Beckman

It’s 2 a.m. and since I’m a back sleeper the blood is dripping from my nose down my philtrum over

For Carmen’s Sake

Karen Regen-Tuero

When the police came, Frank was out making a soda run. He had already added seating to the living room,

Old hands

Martin Malone
Vein-braided landscape Like some satellite snapshot of a tangled delta Stippled now with brown pools, Ridges risen between the inlet

Less than Frank

Bayveen O’Connell

Daddy,

Trespass through the fibers of me. Take a red pen and scissors to my diary. Blot out all mention

The Last One

Peter Cherches
The clerk told me I could find it in aisle 7, but as much as I looked, up and down