by Carol Alexander Red plums are the bodega’s daily special, at rot’s very verge. Wednesday crowds flow over the hump of bridge & tunnel traffic, delirious greasy smoke. The plums sag, well fingered. Leaning from unscreened windows, children dump dishwater on raku cement. At Greenwood, Brooklyn to Slidell, the drydocked are safely dead. Opaline city,
by Carol Alexander Less plumage. Fewer pirate eyepatches skulking around the bins. Pink retracts to notional seed, leaving a carapace of columbine the brown of dead cigars. Turkey oaks extrude ungainly acorns, splayed feet knotted by precipitate gusts of wind. Spackled squirrels with autoimmune disease, dock-tailed, slow. Less water from the decommissioned drinking fountains save
by John Franklin Dandridge Our grandfather told us he was a superhero when we asked about the backwards question mark tattooed over his heart. And we believed him, even though people portrayed him as a villain. John Franklin DandridgeJohn Franklin Dandridge received his M.F.A. in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago. His chapbook, Further Down Rd.,
by Brad Rose The Miami real estate market is so hot, it’s melting the North Pole. Naturally, you can’t tell who’s innocent and who’s guilty just by looking at a courthouse. My doctor says I’m not taking enough drugs, but I told him that in a flight simulator, a bird doesn’t need any wings. Luckily,
by David P. Miller The year I round the bend to forty-nine, my mother emails infant memory kernels to her four sons on their birthdays. Her key word for me, her first: mystique. This is the mystique: I was the baby fresh home from the maternity ward, wafted across the threshold by her, anxious married
by Jacob Butlett They say we are made of stars, our cells entwined with the universe. We drift around one another around a sun whose radiance grasps our hair and thighs as the skies explode into indigo. A meadowlark’s yawn teeters on our fingertips as we stretch outside our tents, gaze at the stars retreating
by Sarah Sarai i. After my mother died from Jesus I left my hair color alone. If it’s just fucking you want, or all you can handle, a decent cut will do. ii. We laughed, me and her, when she stopped. It was the same faded blond she’d been covering. iii. Once I quit, my
by Joseph Mills He watches his son walk off the court and sees someone greet him, or try to; there is an awkward collision of hands, and it jolts the parent as he recognizes knowledge his child lacks and needs. At home, he googles Youtube videos of handshakes, hand grips, hand clasps, high fives, soul
by Joseph Mills For an elementary school dance contest, my big sister taught me disco moves from films I wasn’t old enough to see. Dance to me seemed mostly about attitude, and I had as much then as I would ever have. We choreographed a routine, but it was only a minute, so my partner
by Robert Halleck Truth be known, she did not want it to happen, If you feel that way don’t come home. A shouted warning after a morning fight over a toothbrush before he left slamming the door behind him—an act dulling thoughts of last night at Danny’s: white table cloths, heavy menus, wine, baskets of