Category: VOLUME IV

Fog in Dingle, Emily Mui   From the river something is stirring in a Pacific ultrablue, an edgeless ripple or a water bomb where the sea sinks into violet. The rower bends over his boat with its talon curve and cargo of grasses. His slender pole paints the water with motion, stirs the currents of harbor ships bent with wind, faceless as the gust of…

Livelihood, Liza Ashley     It began somewhere along the creek, where the bunch of us were playing around, each of us 13 or 14 years old, far too old to be doing this sort of thing. Still, we were having fun, pretending to be pirates and buccaneers as we made our way further along the stream…

Ocean, Miyuki Blois   I remember the pool where I first learned to swim. Blue as the dark and wider than dream. I do not know if they threw me in. I do not remember if they said, “You cannot breathe water. You weren’t born fish.” – but I remember, last December, gasping under a vast…

Floral Bones, Raegan Jaeger [Trigger Warning: Depictions of abuse] Yesterday your mother mailed you nine of your baby teeth wrapped in plastic, no return address. I named you. Not your father. She kept one molar for her back pocket.     In the first year of your life your anklebones were soft and your gums bled constantly.     Your mother taught…

War is Over, Ernest Volynec   Before she was drowned in forty feet of silt and squalid water Red Rock was a post for river rats meandered up the muddy Des Moines, come to toe the line of east as far west as it had been, come to steal ponies and rob coaches and make business with the Fox who would…

A Better World is Possible, Ernest Volynec     For months, she wrote only of estuaries, which is how I knew she was leaving. It was February when she began packing— sweaters, her collection of dried leaves— pieces of her vanishing as she would   if she stayed. At some point, I began to help. Folding her mother’s linens into the bag stowed…

The Funnies, Justine Newman     When the power goes out, empty the refrigerator and put the perishables in a cooler full of ice. Assume that the bills weren’t paid and don’t ask questions. Light candles and do not speak. Time your showers, keep them short, ignore that they’re cold. When there isn’t enough food for…

Dazed, Jordan Thompkins     It’s my job to stand guard while Moira smokes. It’s a job I take very seriously, not just because we’re teenagers smoking on school property, but because we’re teenagers smoking on church property, which I imagine the Sisters will see as the more damning sin of the two if we’re ever caught. We’ve…

Rome is the City of Echoes, Gabe Montesanti     I hate my sister’s laugh.   Laugh isn’t really even the right word for it, not really. I guess you could call it   a cackle. Or a maniacal chortle?   I hear it most often in the middle of the night, when the whole house…

Synchronized Formation, Deirdre Murphy   I hang from the last brick of August, and cold is tolling. I don’t hear you, but I remember your summer breath, and you still feel like the softest blue behind my eyes. The months we spent together sit catty-corner: June and July. July, bent in half, turns to face the…

Fruit Basket Part II, Jordan Sommer     Last week, when Deb asked me to go to dinner with the Qureshis—the Qureshis are students at the University where Deb teaches—when Deb asked me about going to dinner at the Qureshis, we were right in the middle of something. You know, like I had my hand on…

Tiny Bust, Jordan Sommer     last night the clock struck three, a lonely bird chirped, and I walked into the kitchen on padded feet. slid onto the floor with the jar and a spoon from the sink. I live off of your rations for sweetness here and the jar has never been mine to take.…

Captive, Cynthia Lee   I almost have the delusion you are with me, crossing tuba soaked streets that leak gator juice into my boots. We pass by lobsters on leashes and fried shrimp earrings and tourists flock to fleur de lys cyborgs. Voodoo dolls pin themselves to my phantom braids going through the Spanish Plaza…

Tortilla Lady, Tamara Dobry     Preview:  This recipe will taste interesting.  Woodsy and starchy and so heavy it will make you feel bloated.  More notably, its title will impress your guests.   Difficulty: Was it difficult for you to leave home for the first time?   Total time: 1 hour for most people.  Probably 3 hours for you.   Prep time: Depends…

Lost Time, Erin Lee     coffeecup piss snow Destination Park Street the flashing Tedeschi’s sign two corners wide neon sidewalk puddles that are here until fucking April, at the earliest and 30pack Coors lite for $24.99. the constellations of CVS, Bottled Liquors, Inbound Pizza guide us home.   the mug in the sink is full…

I’m Tired of Talking About Myself, Jennifer Hart [Trigger Warning: Mentions of child death and abortion] A week after my mother’s funeral, I decided to stay in Wyoming. It seemed like a big decision, but I made it for small reasons. I was hideously menopausal at the time and the idea of going back to…

Untitled, Shiya Wu     O Memorandum, thou anonymous gift,   Thy narrow saffron figure reflects into glass, Camouflaged in radiant, fiery tones, as Apollo’s chariot hurtles toward its terminus;   To his daily haste, thy sprightly essence Is well acquainted, for wherever is A lusty pace, thy sisters shortly follow.   O keeper of…

Untitled #2, Karl Rivera     Aiden’s porn addiction began, unsurprisingly, with porn. For the first 15 years of his life—or really just the past three, in this context—he’d had to make do with his imagination, a few war-torn issues of Penthouse inherited from Uncle Rico, and a copy of Anaïs Nin’s Delta of Venus that his parents had overlooked…

Radioactive Beach Hypothesis Illustration, Elly Call [Trigger Warning: Brief depiction of drug use and addiction] and isn’t it crazy how cocaine ate through my family like vultures? the powder dances in both my grandfathers’ noses. mr. greene fell in love in Baltimore, st. paul’s and north; back then, treating your nose was like memory; now, the…

Small House Near Somewhere, Emily Hill     Is this what the world looks like to you after half a bottle, Ed?   Mountains raging down like drunken fathers? You’re intimately familiar with the slam   of stone against stone.                        Speak with me, wild boy: after all, you saw your own father ramrod in a…

Persephone, Ester Tang Trigger Warning: Depictions of a sexual nature, underage substance use, and animal death] Mom gave me a lift to Thalia’s house, because she needed the car for work and didn’t want me biking on the main road after dark. “Are you sure that’s the right address?” Mom asked when I told her…

Sunday Nights, Emma Brunette [Trigger Warning: Brief mentions of abuse and death] I couldn’t bring myself to take them home— the items sealed in the evidence bag: your wallet, thick with crumbly-edged school photos; an old T-Shirt stained with grease. It made no sense to take them home if I couldn’t take you. The doctor…