Olivia Thorne
Falling through
The shelves of school
I had been pushing against
Since I was as tall as the first plank
Pressing my ear
So as to hear
The world that lay hidden and ahead.
Now I am here
It’s not the speakeasy I had imagined
For easy is not the word.
Why didn’t you tell me
That some of us
Are not taught the chords
So cannot play our […]
Eli Coyle
Near me on the shore, a young woman presses her baby to her breast, a young man is a father and I am getting older on the edges of this lake. To think whatever is bigger sent me here to heal wounds once glued together, now divided—water and rock. This morning I woke to the sounds of my love leaving. Every morning she leaves, and I am left with the emptiness of autumn. It is a repetition in the body, a parting of lips perhaps with coffee. In the evenings […]
Diana Raab
orange painted metal
with equal sized holes
stood on our kitchen counter
beside the ceramic sink.
it collected old coffee grains,
orange peels, prune pits,
and dead flowers from the garden
she nurtured more than the little girl in me.
every few days she’d hold
each side by their handles
and rush to our compost heap
in the far end of the yard
near our grouchy neighbor’s fence.
once in a while he’d scream
that she attracts
the street’s rodents
and that the pile of shit
will not yield her better tasting vegetables.
she’d walk away, hands on hips,
muttering under her breath
as he yelled out that she
was a […]
Valerie Sopher
tomorrow is another day
we’ve seen before
another day of dodging exhales
the sun again falling and getting up
glowing horizons stretched thin with smoke
tomorrow is one more day of delta
breaches over sandbagged vaccines
a waiting room of doctors
who know no cure
tomorrow is another day
like today plodding along
like the day before that
confined to a book-lined room
where stories fail to fill wanderlust
where hope hides in an empty suitcase
with rusty hinges
tomorrow waits to […]
Alex Bastianini
si. [t]. pen. paper. .[is]
o d [-d] [“ love —“
w s
r ] it (pause)
ible]?!&*..
*sigh. write. sigh. [wr
i [te[s
] ] ]
Gerard Sarnat
“The more you learn about the dignity of the gorilla, the more you want to avoid people.” – Dian Fossey
Shalom salaam shanti.
Digging deeper and deeper, primate just want sto give birth.
Breathe, pay attention, push as decades ago down the coast
pulling a slick Jeff Airplane babe into the world back of a flatbed
later on coaching out the same, your own firstborn […]
Heikki Huotari
Out of extrasensory perception, out of universal consciousness. The
hornet swarm that doesn’t scoff at prodding is the hornet swarm that
fades. Yea though I walk in lighted aisles I fear no aftermath. My
options puts and calls, from dearth to plethora the dots connected
disappear. Some precedent slept here. If my redeemer will not work
then my redeemer will not eat. From your facetious where’s-the-fire to
an ersatz precipice I glide. Stochastic mass a mass for all of that
and protoplasmic, your location known to who you choose. To hear you
with my big ears all the […]
Cailean Shelley
It was a relatively warm day on October 3rd when I took the J train all the way downtown and got off at Broad Street. I passed by government-level security gates at the beginning of Wall Street, and found myself walking down an old cobble road towards the towering neoclassical facade of the New York Stock Exchange.
Tourists lined the sidewalks, and gawked in amazement at the architecture and landmarks before them. The streets were dotted with stores like Hermès, Tiffany […]
Elizabeth Jaeger
Nothing is as it should be. At the beach, I had to set up the umbrella. It’s a simple task, but I’m not supposed to do it. Dad never let anyone but my son help him. But Dad isn’t here anymore. COVID stole him from us, and after more than a year, we still haven’t regained our balance. I miss him terribly.
I always enjoyed visiting Dad at his beach house, and since his death, I still enjoy visiting because the […]
Jim Ross
Having negative cash flow, the Free Store couldn’t pay its rent. I learned of its eviction when a housemate announced, “The Free Store’s moving into our basement.” Within hours, a pickup truck pulled alongside our house and two women started lolling boxes into our dirt-floored, walk-in basement. After they left, I counted 32 boxes of clothing sorted by adult/child and male/female. Many weren’t even marked. I haphazardly began organizing.
Because the Free Store’s traffic had been generated when passersby dropped in, […]
