by Nicholas Johnson The red of repeated questions and their red answers. The stacked red of chips on green cloth. Fat chance. The red shift of stars, love retreating, color
Issue: Summer 2021
Stepping into the Sea
by Maria Lisella You let me, your stepmother, Take your hand to walk into the surf, let slippery seaweed wrap around your ankles like emerald ribbons. We step on the edge of lacey waves that feel like
Bland Fanatics and White Crusades: A Review of Bland Fanatics: Liberals, Race, and Empire by Pankaj Mishra
by Katherine Judith Anderson In 1884, a white American named Lyman Stewart founded Union Oil of California. To get his start, he’d leveraged the American “rule of capture,” which granted
Plight & Power: A Kurdish Woman’s Journey in Daughters of Smoke and Fire by Ava Homa
Review by Holly Mason Growing up in a Kurdish-American home, I only had my mother’s stories of Kurdistan and Iraq as a frame of reference for that land and
Magritte’s Aerial Imagination
by Kimmo Rosenthal Everything comes alive when contradictions accumulate. —Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space …no such combination of scenery exists as the painter of genius may produce. —Edgar Allan
Cora’s Kayak
by Cari Oleskewicz Cora’s kayak is balanced on top of Andy’s compact car. From my seat on the passenger side, I watch its pointy yellow tip, imagining it flying off
You Turn Me On!
by Alan Swyer Some of our greatest music was created in strange ways. A Ray Charles classic came to life when the manager of a theater feared that the audience
Semicolon
by Karen DeGroot Carter If I was a punctuation mark, I’d be a semicolon; I can never leave well enough alone. Like if a stranger sits next to me and
The New Moon In the Old Moon’s Arms
by David Hallock Sanders A thin crescent moon hung low above the other apartments. The bright arc cradled the moon’s faint, red shadow. The new moon in the old moon’s
What Happened to My Parents After They Gave Me Up
by Shoshauna Shy She met her true soulmate under a beach umbrella on Nantucket Island, felt like she dodged a bullet, but eventually Soulmate returned to his wife. He took