by Calista Malone Neon With the neon pink light flashing OPENin the storefront window of the arcadecalling up kids like dogs for dinner.You see your eyes, almost as wide asoranges under the glow. You can hear the humof the hulking speakers around the plexi-glassedscreens. At the bottom of your bag, you findenough quarters that, you […]
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by Terry Belew The Great Raccoon War Slipping beneath tin sheets of pole barns, devouring cattle feed and corn. Shoot them on sight. They only come at night. Set out poison. A mother and kit skid down trees, tiny thumbs thumbing noses. A dozen furred bodies in a shed one-night, poisoned tongues […]
by Tom Houseman The Donor The girl’s name was Della. She sat across from them in a soft gray chair in the room the agency had set up for them, her black ballet flats pressed firmly into the carpet. She wore dark blue jeans and a maroon, three-quarter sleeve shirt. Her eyes were light […]
by Molly Bashaw How to Make a Rainbow Begin to imagine that your life is fantastic, no matter what happens next. Light a candle and let it burn until it goes out by itself. Give away the clothes and the mobile. Take the changing table extension off the drawers. You are not replacing anything, […]
by Michelle Lizet Flores When you turn 52. You are now the age your mother never was. You’ve never seen an empty nest before–space and clutter. Who are youwhen no onedepends on you? Here are some instructions your mother couldn’t leave behind: Step out to the yardbarefoot. Dig your toesthrough the earth.Breathe her in. Pluck […]
by Diamond Forde FAT GOSPEL Alice realized she was fat all at once: when her youngest’sinfant-grip mitted into her folds, noticed how her nursed childmolded into its mountainous mother, cuddling too comfortablein Alice’s pillowed arms— 2 at first, Alice felt fine with her fat—assumed her armshad adapted to lift a child’s heft so that the […]
Or How to Honor Thy Mother by Diamond Forde CANDIED YAM CASSEROLEOr How to Honor Thy Mother INGREDIENTS 4 sweet potatoes swollen with sun¾ cup of brown sugar (molasses clung)1 c of white sugar1 cinnamon dashnutmeg (just a splash) 1 stick butter, split into pats2 fresh eggs¼ c of buttermilkone greased dish DIRECTIONS Diamond Forde’s […]
Or How to Monster by Diamond Forde CANDIED YAMSOr How to Monster INGREDIENTS 4 sweet potatoes swollen with sun¾ cup of brown sugar (molasses clung)1 c of white sugarnutmeg (just a pinch) 2 cinnamon sticks½ lb butter, split into patsorange juice (just a splash)1 lemon, zested & masheda stove near-explosive with gas DIRECTIONS Swamp the […]
by Rosa Sophia Elgin Jumper is a Seminole poet and artist whose poetry collection, Nightfall, was published by the American Native Press Archives and Sequoyah Research Center, University of Arkansas at Little Rock. His work was recently presented in a documentary from Seminole Media Productions entitled “Elgin Jumper’s Colorful Journey,” which premiered at the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki […]
by Travis Cohen Alexandra Chang is the author of Days of Distraction (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2020) and was recently selected as a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree, chosen for the impact her debut and future works promise to have on the literary landscape. Her forthcoming collection of short stories, Tomb Sweeping, is set to be […]
by Alan Ackmann Cartography “The science of mapmaking, in the end, is the science of separating what is known from what has yet to be discovered.” — Fromner’s Comprehensive Atlas, 1978 It’s eleven-thirty at night in mid-November. Arthur and his wife Deb are staring each other down in a rest stop lobby somewhere in […]
by Jo Christian Extreme bouts of Growing Pains my Father Tends to with Absorbine Growing pains prodded my legs, restless as a horse’s,it’s skin shuddering under flies, always the urge to runrising. I inched closer to the bedside only waking to the thud of bone on wood.And this is how my father found me, crying […]
by Shya Scanlon The Very Absence of Connection Glen couldn’t help thinking that if their roles were reversed, he’d be kicking Bob’s teeth in. Or at least failing at it. Bob wasn’t a big man but he looked strong, and besides he’d seen action in Vietnam. Not much you could do to a man who’d […]
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Time Passes
by Marissa Ahmadkhani Time Passes and the cypress trees sway as gray cloudsrise to an overcast sky. I sip my coffeeas it steams into the morning mist,remembering the row of dark green treesnext to my childhood home,their feathered tips movingwith the wind—how I’d lay in the grass,eyes squinting defiance at the sunas my father trimmed […]
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Dysthymia, or For Persephone
by Marissa Ahmadkhani Dysthymia, or For Persephone I buy plants on days when I waketo a numbness in my chest—as if the smallness of the budswill shoulder some of that dull weight before sending it into the soil.When Persephone was stolen by Hades,she was out picking flowers—stopping for a narcissus bloom, she reached out and […]
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Mythology
by Marissa Ahmadkhani Mythology Orpheus plays his lyre and, like Cerberus, I am tricked to sleep, left on the cold ground with a false sense of security. In dreams, I relive that night again and again: you in front of the window, warm candlelight bouncing off bare walls, the glasses of wine neither of us […]
by Sarath Reddy Bollywood Shuffle A story of forbidden love and overbearing parentswho have forgotten the magic of sunsets, full moons, lightning.The lovestruck couple discovers the world is small, flatlike a disco dance floor, flashing colors all lit up.Stepping across borders of status and caste they frolicin the wispy fog of the inebriated Himalayas,then to […]
by Sarath Reddy Monsoon My childhood dissolved like salt into watermonsoon blending sky and earth, fallingsteadily, drenching thatched roofs,quenching the parched leaves of guava trees.I stared into a deep well where cattle grazed,uncertain if there was water at the base,tossed a pebble. Years later stillhear the splashof water steamed for my morning bath,crackle of splintered […]
by McLeod Logue Alabama Queen The red earth was God’s way of knowing who was good enoughto be dirty. In the backyard, I play house underground, lettingmy fingernails make pockets in the earth. It feels goodto be cold down to the bone. It’s bible belt territory. Redas the fire ants. Red as the blood in […]
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sunday school lesson
by a. adenike phillips sunday school lesson easter morning on dania beach,gulls fly over the waveswaiting for grace to showits shadow, then swoop & thieve it from the tumultuous cumof the sea. here i see endlessversions of myself crestingatop the spumes, revolving over the same wounds, each more treacherousthan the first. how this ocean church […]
by Bree Bailey OK, I’m Finally Ready to Admit My Faults double golden shovel with Hanif Abdurraqib How hard it is to hear the hymn that isn’tsmall, gather spit up – throat, hitch into it.We’ve crossed paths and are no longer funny.Become new dollars. Brownstone broken. Howbecause of pride I keep uneven bucktooth silenceof generational […]
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Exocarps
by Maggie Yang Exocarps You stare at your faceon the green card, more wrinkledthan your veins, name sheddedinto frames. Speckled with stars &picket fences. The window blursyour eyes as you sit on the plasticseat, more warmth outside thanin your hands, as you fumble overa coin, unaccepted currency.The map on the wall of the busis turned […]
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I am not a mother
by Maya McOmie I am not a mother of a god; I am notreligious entity. I am not illusion: not water,not the damp, scented earth under feet.I am no good mother, nor the goddessof spring; I’m not a people, populatingregions of land. Not one of the eldest,not a Pleiades. Never was enlightened. I’mnot mine, or […]
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The Cormorant
by Allison Jiang The Cormorant In Chinese, the verbs for “swallow” (violent)and “drown” are homonyms.They are two fates separated onlyby a twitch in the throat.One like taking a bitter pill,the othertaking it all in.I go down like sludgeI 咽 every last crumb, choke it downwith ease, esophagus wideninglike I’ve done it beforebecause I have.Watching the […]
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guerra
by Carlos Egaña guerra [buscando visa para naufragar] in seas of red, white, and bluethat leak from cumulus clouds, Ibecome a pillar of salt and sulfur. my head is a tendonless specter – as my body goes furiouslyinto nights of shame, it rocks and rolls and relishesin a stampede of memories. [buscando visa, carne de […]
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Cina
by Jeddie Sophronius Cina ci·na /ˈʧɪnə / offensive 1. He said he would protect me should the mob come: // “hundreds of incensed demonstrators / ran from the scene yelling / ‘kill cina’ and brandishing weapons.” 2. Those who try to pass as the people they’re not: // grandmother was pregnant when the police escorted […]
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Tales About Women
by Molly Zhu Tales About Women They say a rabbit lives on the face of the moon,with a beautiful girl and a wizened willow tree, too.They are ensconced from the darkened earth,as much as they are trapped in a spell…these are the myths my grandmother would whisper to mein almost musical speech, a tiny smile […]
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