by Kim Malinowski I met Humpty Dumpty at a poetry reading before she fell off the wall. Stuttering, shy, hardly alert, she trembled during my inquisition. I like neurotic protagonists. A few coffees later, a mimosa—I got her chatty, her words a whisper, I held her hand getting closer. She had played the suicide game
by Ron Czerwien Ron Czerwien’s maternal grandparents lived in a cottage in the woods. All day long his grandfather, dressed in Lederhosen, stood on the porch sawing a log, his grandmother, wearing a paisley dress, poked her head out of the kitchen window, smiling. Every hour the cottage roof sprung open and Ron Czerwien popped
by Laura Zaino Be careful what you write—one day someone might read it, and then the inside’s out, and then what will you do? … Encapsulated experience escaped. … Float your bubble elsewhere, carry your singular delight, each passing moment coated in changing light filtered through all your perfect moods, modes. Except that nobody ever
by Richard Jeffrey Newman 1 The girl who turned her back on you when you were twelve to be a girl who gave herself to fashion returns to offer you her hips. She peels from perfect porcelain skin the same shade of pink she wore the last time you saw her in shul and you
by Drew Pisarra Like most refrigerators, I run alone. Ignoring the cowardly order of things, the cluttered shelves and two empty drawers that make up this life, I shut the one door that leads to the hallway of strangers. My friends left hours ago. Some say, years. I now fondle the asp of Egypt as
by Sarah Ghoshal When the bottle of frozen vodka crashed onto the tile floor, we all knew it was over. After all, the sheets in the wind stopped blowing long ago, the hurting backbones and tired ankles and fallen dreams burn tightly with sleet. The outside is a burst of fog. The outside is a
by Richard L. Matta The phlebotomy classes paid off. I can tie off and stick like nobody’s business. For so long I’ve been been pricking the needle time and time again to float above the pain of betrayal and lost love and this cold isolation. I still have the teddy bear a chick left me
by Gretchen Primack Some of your brother’s illness was there all along, some bloomed as he came of age. You came of age in the bunk below, his shrieks staining the ceiling, grease from his head staining the wall. He is still there. You climbed out how you could. You have a trace of his
by Bruce Whitacre Fine as a grain of sand yet vast as a planet, lightning eater, thermal forge, bosom of river and lake, air anchor, wind sculpture, you host the play of all, from the touchable to the unsayable. When we dug the foundation of