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I Have a Scab on My Knee
Devil’s Claw, Victoria Barry that’s jagged and circular like a small stone severed from a larger rock The dried blood cavernous and sharp Pussing from the eye of the sore It stings itches begging me to pick at it Peel back Split it apart from healing skin Pink and dry Ripe Not ready to be…
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Sabratha
Holy, Nia Owen When Mother contracted the virus, she had a villa built in Sabratha, Libya, where Roman ruins and human bones lay desolate by the sea. Her doctor estimated that the virus would lie dormant in her body for a year before it entered the replicative phase, at which point it would…
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Killing a Chicken
Smooch, Cassandra Warner Grandma was squatting on a low stool in the stuffy bathroom, lit only with a window open to the traffic below and reeking of blood splashed over the tiles. In between her legs was a blue plastic tub, and in the tub was a half-naked chicken. Her hands worked efficiently,…
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Oh! Send Me a Postcard
Beach, Jacob Roosa i. tightly spun egyptian cotton, imported of course, wraps up your wet body like it did for pharaohs. you picture kings who lounged about in silken kimonos watching the bronzed laymen selling their city’s idiosyncratic spices in a marketplace, so bazaar. you hear only the slipperiness of their…
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Dusk in Dakar
Untitled, Zachary Vaughn Five o’clock shadows cast down their doubting eyes. They turn my wall – a hapless host to a lone Light Bulb – gray. My sea-glassy-eyed window vets each immigrant sunbeam who asks to take refuge who would settle its errant light (“anywhere”) (“please”) Even on the nails…
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Chocolate
Conch, Alessandra Leo I’m a firm believer that it shouldn’t be cold without snow. There is no reason for the air outside to freeze in my lungs as I open the window and clamber out onto the fire escape in the blue-grey of the predawn morning. The metal railings burn my palms as I…
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Hairy Girl
H2O, Erin Lee You must have stared at your reflection for an hour before the choice was made. Your eyes followed up the slope of your nose to your eyebrows and the jet black hairs subtly connecting them. It was an easy decision to make if you didn’t think about it, but that was never…
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Krousher
Volatile, Anna Koeferl I once read that an eye could be removed from its socket, the optic nerve still attached and functioning. Can you imagine such a careful operation? I imagine a white coat surgeon— a doctor, perhaps, steady hands lovingly twisting the scalpel and pin, circles onto circles onto circles, lens onto iris onto pupil,…
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Tuesday
A Better World is Possible, Ernest Volynec Paint rollers on sale today, thankfully. Which color suggests my walls will not miss the pale space where your painting used to hang? About the Author Katherine Tison · University of Florida Katherine Tison graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida with a B.S.…
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Choices
Still Life in Blue and Yellow, Hayley Cormier, Boston College When they met they fell in love and decided to get married and all of a sudden they were in California. The successive events were short and definitive as knife wounds. His father was dying and needed someone to stay with him in…
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The Space We Have Left
Interlocked, Roma Parikh Everyone I want to love is knuckle-distance away on a map the size of my hand. We are fingertips on opposite sides of glass, telephonic voices in adjacent time zones— it’s all too far for me. The airplane leaves a trail of chalk in the sky. In seat A, my arm…
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Mokita
Karla with Candle, Kreuzberg, Berlin, Samantha Metzner It is the worst at nights when everything is still and silent and when everything that is left is the whisper. In the darkness Harold cannot see my face; I feel the warmth of his body lying next to mine, and I am waiting for his…
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Seventy
Throwback, Abigail Jackson When she turned seventy, my grandmother stopped pretending to quit smoking. Though her days consisted mostly of coughing and burning holes in the tablecloth, she never parted with her Salems. “I’m ready to go,” she used to say, as the rising smoke yellowed the ceiling in patches. …
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Galway, Ireland 1993
Small House Near Nowhere, Emily Hill Friday, Kristin cuts vegetables into finer things, searches the weekly chicken like a dead body. The bones are boiling away for soup— six o’clock and the house is Catholic for the day. The walls are warm ochre, but Kristin shivers, trying not to think of her parents’…
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The Nudist on Pine Street
Untitled #2, Karl Rivera [Trigger Warning: Mentions of pedophilia] Mr. Walker didn’t give us a warning or indication of any kind when he decided to become a nudist. I had pulled into my driveway after a long day at the lab when Mr. Walker came strolling along, walking Rocky, his pit bull. What was more disorienting…
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An Adjustment
Wish You Were Here, Nia Owen After Rainer Maria Rilke Sometimes a claims adjuster stands up during an HR meeting and walks out of the office, drives away and keeps on driving, because of a glacial tarn somewhere in the Rockies. His co-workers talk about him as though he’s committed suicide. And another adjuster,…
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Sugarcane
Popcorn, Karlen Lambert My father’s calloused hands force sugarcane broken as he pulls leaves clean from stalks. This dusty town fills our lungs with stifled coughs. The wind writhes between fingers clamped across mouths. The sun thrashes like a hooked trout. I stop and bite a clean stalk and taste faint honey and dirt.…
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How to Have an In-Vitro Fertilization Baby
The Not-So Virgin Mary, Julia Broeker First, make sure you’ve tried every possible method. Peer at Jenn’s list, an inventory of conception tricks longer than a wedding DJ’s playlist. Drink less caffeine. Check. Eat more fish. Check. Lay flat with feet raised after copulating. Check. Suspend like a vampire bat after copulating. Check. Spooning. Check.…
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The Newly-Minted Dyke
War is Over, by Ernest Volynec For what we knew to be our second date We went to go see some spoken word poet the campus had brought in. For the most part, she talked about the female experience and being queer. I felt confident enough to hold your hand in public but still…
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Friday Morning
The Funnies, Justine Newman My father drank orange juice with extra pulp. I never cared for the texture, but it was the closest we could afford to fresh squeezed. In those days, he owned an auto repair shop. He opened late every Friday—no one asked him why, or what he did with his free mornings. I…
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Black Box Equinox
A New World of Light, Jacob Fisher As the lights dim and the curtains open, my heart beats its own symphony. I realize I am trapped. The only two seats left when we arrived were in the middle of a row, so not only would I have to clamber over the laps of…
