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Cantos from an Anatomically Correct Chronology by Manuel A. Melendez SATURN Cantos from an Anatomically Correct Chronology What flesh did Saturn[1] savor first? Was it the gummy thigh by the ass-cheek? The creamy-white chest where the heart-blood is juiciest? Maybe he suckled a tender finger until the marrow gave way to a skeletal hollow. Did he […]
by Jacklin Farley After Beholding the Stains on My PBR Can My beloved whispers against my bare, open neck – “I want your lipstick on everything” – then examines my sleek aluminum cylinder again under the dive bar fairy lights, as if it were somerare mineral specimen or elusive icon of unparalleled archeological import. My paisley-print denim mini skirt dampening beneath […]
by Eric Lochridge Wild Horse Island Our summer road trip ended in Lakeside at dusk, thunderstorm roiling the water. Gray lake agitated, Grandpa’s boats bobbed like ice cubesat the docks. The glare of the dying day raged in my stepmother’s eyes. Her wrath struck like lightningthat always found my body—half-moon marks on my wrist, archipelago of bruises across my thigh.Dad scurried […]
by Veronica A. Bettencourt Panini Maker It idles most days. Once onyx groovesfaded to ash gray, it hangs on.Sometimes, it sputters as it grills, as though it knows this could be the last timeits steel ribs cradle sourdough andcheddar, energy rushing through its iron veins, meltingall it touches. I remember the friendwho gave it to […]
by Emily Harper Ellis The Hope Chest Gloria had never seen a dead man before and knew, as soon as her truck crested the hill, that she was experiencing one of her life’s defining moments and had better do it right. He was perfectly, doubtlessly dead: his hands and face were blue and every inch […]
by Kamila Izquierdo Yaddyra Peralta is a poet originally from Tegucigalpa, Honduras. She immigrated to Miami with her family at the age of six. It was there that her passion for poetry began, sparked by an introduction to haiku from her first-grade Spanish teacher. Her essays and poetry have since been featured in anthologies like Eight Miami […]
by Anna Swann-Pye Ladies Lazari Two months ago, I wrote an essay about the death of my dog and subsequent loss of a pregnancy. I compared forms of grief, thought about god and death, and sent it around to my loved ones and a couple literary magazines for good measure. The Board of Editors at […]
by Jordan Nishkian Stay With Me for a While In the silence of Corinne’s home, I lie on her living room floor, gaze pinned to the vaulted ceiling. I take inventory of my body. The blood under my nails has hardened. My right shoulder is so dislocated it feels like my arm’s swimming in its […]
by Justine Busto Late Blooming Rita Nothing was useless to Aunt Rita. When a light bulb sputtered out, it went in a box, along with wool socks, key chains, balls of twine, insurance company calendars, seeds bundled in used envelopes, and hotel soap. Sometimes she’d tuck a ten inside. Scotch-tape the box shut, covering every […]
by Homa Mojadidi Burial If I was there I could’ve cradled his fallen bodyWiped his blood with the hem of my dressSmoothed his raven-like hair placed a final kiss upon his foreheadMemorized the shape and color of his eyes before I closed them a final timeWashed his body with my tears placed him in the soft earthBuilt him a monument […]
by Jodi Cressman We are Looking at Photographs of Todd Domboski, Centralia, Pennsylvania, Valentine’s Day, 1981 We see Todd in his grandmother’s backyard, awkward, upright, like the column of steam that he was viewing up close when the ground gaped and he slid into the shaft where a mine fire was smoldering miles beneath his […]
by Laurin Becker Macios Shards The floor is cold but spotless outside Annie’s open door. I spread myself over it, salted butter on toast, her childhood favorite. You’re losing it, Jim tells me, stepping over me to get to our room. By the time I manage to scrape myself up and through our threshold, Jim’s […]
by Lexi Pelle Delicious The cashier checks to see if any eggs in the carton are crackedbefore carefully setting it back on the conveyor belt. A mother lays the smooth gray stone she pulledfrom her daughter’s pocket into the warm basket beside the washing machine. These delicate displays,small stays against the schlepp toward death. I […]
by Ben Gunsberg Pillow You deserve more than just enough morphineto halter the red-eyed mare. More than this clean, plush thing your head imprints post-splitand exorcism of lymph nodes. More than swift renewal of soft tissue and the infinite viewfrom a hospital room on the fourteenth floor. More than parched hours spent sponging your lips,you […]
by Ivy Raff Sarah Poet Ivy Raff is the author of What Remains (Editorial DALYA forthcoming 2025), winner of the Alberola International Poetry Prize, and Rooted and Reduced to Dust (Finishing Line Press, 2024). She serves artist communities as MacDowell’s Senior Systems Project Manager and as a member of Seventh Wave Magazine’s editorial team. Artist […]
by Michael Cuervo Ryan Van Meter is an author whose work grabs the reader and never lets go. His essay collection, If You Knew Then What I Know Now (Sarabande Books), is a stirring journey of identity, one that bends form and genre to navigate the vulnerability of exploring and discovering the self. His work has been featured […]
by Chrissy Kolaya and Nathan Holic Author Chrissy Kolaya is the author of one novel, Charmed Particles (Dzanc Books) and two books of poems: Other Possible Lives and Any Anxious Body (Broadstone Books). Her short fiction and poems have been included in the anthologies New Sudden Fiction (Norton) and Fiction on a Stick: New Stories […]
by Han VanderHart Woman Peeing in a Barnafter Emmet Gowin (1971) is Edith Gowin, the photographer’s wife is backlit by summer is holding her white cotton gown up is hands gathering at hip bones is legs apart is head turned sideways is relaxed, mouth parted is letting her water flow on the barn floor is […]
by Kurt Olsson Say Talaq for Me After the Russian folk song “Миленький ты мой”(“My Darling”) May your nipples grow weedyas a lunatic’s beard. May the windows in your housegape like the evil eye. May life become a scripturedesecrated of all sense. Oh, my darling, take me with you.There in a distant country I’ll […]
by James Long Fingers Always first to arrive, like armies or spring rain, their conversations with the invisible mind frighten me: how fast they could grab a glovebox flask or tap a Google search for Modigliani nudes. I spread mine out, crowned with their half-moon claws, white-capped and holy as nuns. I wonder if they’re […]
by Jacob Griffin Hall I Miss You Thank You for Being Here 1. Inside every place is a vast reservoir of feeling. Inside every person, too. Sometimes, when my mood is right, I can feel the reservoirs mixing. The currents touch each other and stir. I feel them in my stomach, outside of my body, […]
by Jennifer Browne Let there be No Scarcity of Beauty [Day 46] “Modern economics has a particular view of scarcity, in which human beings have infinite desires, and society must therefore facilitate endless growth and consumption, irrespective of nature’s limits.” —Wennerlind and Jonsson 1. Of infinite desire, I see only one:only one desire, which […]
by Arianna Miller Phantom StingWith a line by Sandra Cisneros What’s love? A brickthrough a windshield; it’s a crimeto be full of passion. And how do we justify it? The weight of a structuralnecessity? Splintering glass? I once let a man tell mehe only wanted me but would not call me his. I was kept at an […]
by JeFF Stumpo [Tonight you are an insect bound by window-magic…] Poet JeFF Stumpo is a survivor of psychosis and PTSD. These pieces come from a manuscript of prose poem dreamscapes based on actual nightmares he’s had, as well as the hopes and fears of people he cares about. He has a poorly-maintained website at […]
by Kathryn Gilmore In a dream, my father asks me to help him die faster We sit at opposite ends of his hospice bed,wrinkled sheets stained with dried blood and shit. No, we sit on the Mississippi’s brown waves,lurching between every other breath. No, there is no breath. That is, he isn’t inhaling,only releasing one […]
by M.C. Schmidt Cave Dwelling At dinner parties, they would say it was the economy that drove them to live in an undersea cave. The parties were at the homes of others, above ground, the low altitude of their cave causing alcohol to sit strangely in the blood, a throb of pressure in the inner […]
by Bryce Taylor Floridian Beauty We were Orlando boys. Our seasons marked by the changing of sports. The autumnal colors of football fields with their pom-poms and helmet-berries, the shining ice-flat basketball courts of winter. Spring was a baseball in flower, hats and bats in bloom, and summer was everything, lakes and beaches, theme parks, […]
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