Category: Current Issue

by Kathryn Petruccelli Self Portrait with Invented House of Worship Imagine a house. There should definitely be walls,boundaries, how else to hold this story? A house.Longing for home. Nesting. Maybe rent to own.Discount for long-term lease. All that. A houseof worship. Except I get to choose what goes inthe windows. Forget the guy with the […]

by Kathryn Petruccelli R: All You Need The letter R, trilled in Latin, was referenced as littera canina (“the dog’s letter”) because its sound was believed to resemble a dog’s growl. Nurse: Doth not rosemary and Romeo begin both with a letter?Romeo: Ay, nurse; what of that? both with an R.Nurse: Ah, mocker! that’s the […]

by Kathryn Petruccelli N: Cheating Evolution Like many letters of the Roman alphabet, N has evolved over 4,000 years such that one might not recognize some of its earlier shapes. It derives from the Phoenicians’ letter nun, meaning fish. …Humans may also extend their bodies into non-anthropomorphic structures such as wings…During the twilight years of […]

by Porsha Monique Allen Health Conditions after Nicole Sealey’s “Medical History” Negative said the pregnancy test for the third timewith the third man. None of whom I lovedor loved me. My great-grandmother died ofnatural causes. My Aunt died of breast cancer,my uncle of prostate. My maternal grandmotherwent blind from diabetes then died from it.I have […]

by Javeria Hasnain Self-Portrait as a Witness Is that how you have seen me all your life—unmirrored as I am. I wish I too had looked at myself longer as a child. Once, N fascinatedthe whole class by turning her fingers into a claw. I’m a vulture, she said, as if it was something to […]

by Javeria Hasnain Those that announce their departure as a probable return My family is full of these kinds of people. Baba,going for his evening walks, says, I’m coming back. We all linger at the doorway a little longerthan is customary—unyielding, convinced that, somehow, we will snatch our dead back from God.The next day after […]