Online Exclusives
“The Age of Enlightenment” by Michael Harmon
The machine I call myself. The mechanism known as me. The clock or timer that I am. Running down and always was. Music in a garbage truck’s Thud of a dumpster in the morning, Or the way another wakes me, Makes far better matter to consider.
“Tall Tale–A Lumber Camp Massacre” by Gina Marie Bernard
The snow arrived at 11:11, superstitious numbers for the Cass Lake loggers: four parallel pines announcing the banking storm. Men had been promised a day and a half of women and whiskey, and drug themselves from the forest, footfalls heavy as felled fir. These thirsty birlers—Norwegians, French Canadians, Irishmen—carried upon their shoulders broad axes and serrated saws, but buried deep within their woolens they bore darker truckage: national pride and prejudice as … READ MORE…
“Paradise, USA” by Christine Nichols
Let us move to the island of rattlesnakes. I will protect you. Watch me slide off my city-pumps, walk barefooted on hot rocks. Together, let us dance across the beach, wave our hands like carefree children, feel grit rise between hungry toes. I will ask you—spend the night here, with me on the dunes, bare-bodied in the sand. Know that in this garden, all things are natural. Take away my weapons. Let the hiss of the water conceal their approach.
“Ants” by Greg W. Lyons
FADE IN: EXT. PARKING LOT – NIGHT An empty parking lot with a lone streetlight that partially covers the area. Just beyond the parking lot is a jungle gym and a baseball diamond.The park is secluded. At the edge of the park is a fence, and beyond the fence are the woods. A car is parked just out of reach of the streetlight.
Three Poems by D. C. Wiltshire
“I am the outcast” I am the outcast of the day aloft on shrill gusts up near the quiet cirrus, who dangle their legs in my long, thick hair that tickles in breezing past. Behold the shepherd whose sheep go home each to his own den, away from the wind, and I to my humble abode, too small to house them all. I who stand creekside
“Absolution Among the Hail and Blackberries” by Christine Nichols
I am open, in the field. I offer the hail my belly, a thinly lidded eye, a curve of arched neck. In the air, the trill of a lark’s song, its voice— a fountain, bubbles in darkness. I wait for the sin. It’s coming.
“#BlackLivesMatter)” by Keri Withington
For the good of the Fatherland, i know why the others aren’t here the girls with purple-black eyes the boys with boys the priests who sermonize and the Jews the Jews the Jews houses sit empty stare not one says any thing no one trusts … READ MORE…
“A Guide to Violence” by Kandace Siobhan Walker
have a body.1 abandon the gender you were assigned at birth.2 name social structures which shape & govern your reality. name trauma. name the classes who inflict trauma on bodies like ours. remove a history book from its shelf and light a match. practice empathy.3 walk naked into the street, demanding reparations. adopt english as a mother language, when you’ve no other choice. disobey the state by giving birth. talk in dialect, like you never left the motherland. learn to … READ MORE…
“It Was Alright” by Matt Zambito
It was alright to meet you that first night is an understatement what Analogy exams are worth a whole lot of nearly nothing is to overstatement. Really: What could be more radically ideal than the whole forsaken universe being
“Praise Where I Can” by Derick Ebert
Chalk lines stretch across eroding black top, pandemonium is tasting soot in the mouth, names become ash when memories are buried. The earth can’t save the hum of voices, the way Pompeii can cradle a body from extinction, I’ve learned home is where death is least likely I cannot live here.