by Ace Boggess [question asked by Savannah Dudley] My ex-wife didn’t like the taste of oily burnt asphalt boiled in the morning like a candle lit for prayer. My ex-wife— I want to say maybe that’s why we didn’t last, but there are other reasons we both store in suitcases labeled resentment. I gave her
by Laura Zaino Feed it well: think good thoughts, cultivate fortitude. Believe impossible things– before breakfast, after breakfast, whenever you’re awake. Stay wild, fuck often. When your ears ring listen to the tone fade out until the very last thread of vibration releases. Laura ZainoLaura Zaino is a lover of life, finding beauty even when
by Richard Levine Dear Reader, We must be changing, adapting or evolving in significant ways, in order to live with Covid confinement, the effects of a wooden cross being driven into the heart of American democracy, the zero-sum economy, the black & white ballistics of social justice and racial inequality, the sport of mass-shootings as
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