by Moumina Khan A majestic palace, a darkened stage, a cloudless sky, a blank page A clock in the background. (Tick) (And a five! Six! Seven! Eight!) Words dance and leap and twirl Spinning through sentences and pirouetting around punctuations With carefree smiles, gliding effortlessly through invisible lines Their adorning adjectives glistening: Splendid diamonds dangling off the swells of letters Verbs, their beckoning smiles gently … Continue reading Waltzing Practice
by Madison Reid We are sitting in an Italian restaurant, sunlight tickling the table between us Should I get a tattoo, I ask, I think I want a bird, maybe on my sore hip bone You tell me I’m being cliché And that maybe you’ll ink a raisin on your heel or something Continue reading Gnocchi
By: S.J. Swoap No one has more time and less use of it than a living man with a dead wife. He sat in the movie theater, not looking at the empty seat beside him, the only empty seat in the theater. He stared instead at his watch, a fiftieth anniversary gift. Four minutes from that theater was the high school where they’d met, and … Continue reading Time and Time Again
By: Joseph Harmon If he were anything at all, he thought he might be a homing pigeon. That night, he tripped over a crack in the pavement, split his knee, and tracked a trail of blood spots through the halls of their building. Maribel had to go back and clean it up so it didn’t look like a murder. While she took care of business, … Continue reading The Caricature
Inspired by the Trevor Paglen photograph of the same name By: Ethan Resek There are no roads to this place. There are no sentences leaving this place. There are no moons in this place Even though it might look like it. I express my love for this place. I express my love for this place With my eyes looking down. A book and a … Continue reading They Watch the Moon
By: Madison Reid I. My angels are nosy – – lithe bodies/prayer hair/cells of botanist’s terms – “Did we bury him beneath a Quercus or Acer or maybe another?” II. I dreamed a drawer held all I’ve lost. Snow globes / long sleeves, velvet memories, baby teeth. III. (Days misplaced mount wings – paint heart shade, heart shape) Continue reading Recollection
By: Aberdeen Bird They told me not to step on thistles but proceeded to say that we have something in common because they, too, have Scottish veins. I wish they’d take care to not step on me, either. Not from fear of being squished, but fear of impaling soft, uncalloused soles that never wander down gravel roads, barefoot in July. I always took … Continue reading Christopher and Ginny
