Contemporary Landays John Jajeh I wanted her dancing.I stumbled to die here.We are different species.Everything sets us apart.A prisoner in actors’ feetPlays a character—method acting.To prove myself is to entertain.To resuscitate is to have written.This is living.This is leaving. John Jajeh is an Atlanta native. His previous works have appeared in Peregrine Journal, Free Library…

Kelli Lage My Grand Amthe embodiment of freedom.We piled in with nowhere to travel but backroads.Ear-splitting musicpulsed through my palms on the steering wheel.We stuck our tongues outand licked the full moon of all its glory.Do they still dream of that era?The world was untouchedand we wanted to swallow it whole. Kelli Lage lives in…

Will Musgrove We all needed homes, but the auctioneer claimed there’d been a typo. The advertisement was supposed to read reality not realty. People left. People stayed. I stayed. A man bid on and won fantasy after fantasy. He also used his paddle to buy realities full of suffering and want. When the auctioneer pounded…

Josie  Levin It is not orange season and sothe woman at the registercharges two dollars extra tohunch over them just a few days longerthe jogger at the park does not stop soI cannot pet his dog and the dogand I duck our heads low andeye each other regretfully You were right about griefI carry it…

Frank William Finney So what if the worldruns out of graves? Train your eyesfor renovation: Incense burnsin the Hollywood hills. Mere smoke for starsthat don’t exist. Frank William Finney is the author of The Dissolution of the Sparkling Bridge and Songs of Insomnia (Suksit Siam). His poems have appeared in Jersey Devil Press, The Plentitudes,…

[even as we close / i leave / they shutter the shop] Jen Schneider wood framed doors bear signs written by/of hand in sharpie font. streaks & smudges of black/red/blue ink. greetings / all are welcome / open for business / we are / sale. hammers knock. plywood covers. affronts on grammar. all grammar welcome.…

Salvatore Difalco One morning, black-robed men with silver hair rained down from thesky. They fell screaming all day and night, thudding to the ground,heaping up in mangled piles. People panicked. My wife and I decidedto evacuate the city and head up north to our cottage in Muskoka. Theroads were a bloody mess. “Your wipers are…

Avra Margariti The mayor’s wife reads an article in the local newspaper about children raised by an entire village. The words bleed ink and guilt, an instant hit with the entire Sunday congregation. The baker abandons the baby on his workstation each morning. She rolls in flour; a malnourished loaf. “I should melt you in…

K Roberts Furious orange skies, scoured by prairie dust cast aloft, alerted us a tornado was approaching. But who could predict where we’d take cover, wedged in a gymnasium basement, surrounded by sixteen squads of visiting varsity cheerleaders? Warning sirens are howling above us like maenads, but the pep rally continues undeterred; a hundred blended…

James Thad I wait for you outside the glory of the warehouse’s light.It’s snowing. You are several years late.The snow’s impetigo is thick at the mouth of the parking lot.The sky is full of antibiotic ointment the earth can’t afford.A pastel text alerts me: God’s yacht anchored in my overdraft fee. I wonder: did I…

Aimee Lowenstern SANCTUM Here is where the moon dips its head to drink from my window. My whole body is a bird-bath for dreams. They come to rest, and I welcome them. My heart is full of worms for eating. LOVE STRUCK When I am dead, I will be beautiful to the vultures, beautiful as…

Dawn Macdonald Sometimes I talk too fast and … [five lines missing] … put my tongue in sprints. The following is as follows: one, a principle; two, the perception of damp; three, multiply by five to get the distance to the storm. … [approximately two-and-a-half lines missing] … (full?) throat. Dawn Macdonald lives in Canada’s…

We challenged writers to send us their bear-related poetry and prose, in celebration of Katmai National Park’s Fat Bear Week. If a Bear by Kelli Lage If a bear ransacks my skeletonwhen no one is looking,do bones still bow to forests? If a bear sneers at my thighsdo I mirror the grizzly’sgrisly? If a bear…

Karen Schauber They gathered around pushing and shoving, clambering for the best possible view as the flashlight peered deep into the bellybutton, past the fluff, past the bramble, the whorls and braided roots, to the celestial bodies and beyond, and there hiding in plain sight was the thing they had called GOD. Karen Schauber’s flash…

by Samaré Gozal A large pile of books on the wet asphaltIn bags and trolleysPassers by grab what they may before the rain comesThe wind blows the radio scripts side to sideLittle notes and postcards peek out of the rectangles There are three burials;One of the bodyOne of possessions collected as if eternity was a…

by Joshua Effiong O tender sunset, O safe landings,     an onset of beauty lost before bloom.O purple breath, O blushing heart,     soft rain bleaching rainbow off the sky.O deleted files, O unripe memories,     give me the crumbs in your rusty teeth.O treacherous wind, blowing a staggering smile     off blistered faces. A stranger faraway. Joshua Effiong is a writer and…

by Michaela Brown They are on their way to a book reading by a bald man who knows everything about the ocean. The restaurant is donned crimson and gold, and in the corner booth sits a young couple sharing a bowl of edamame. “We’re the opening of a joke,” says the Muslim, between bites of…

by Julián Martinez Anytime one of us got to crack our backs –be it in on a smoke break, or in bed at 4am –our guardian angel whispered wake up wake up wake up, like Marvin Gayeon ‘Sexual Healing,’ to the unanswered lineof the actuarial department in Heaven so that they might have it on…

by Sara Backer We gather folding chairs around a fire pitin gravel and weeds, the sun ripeningorange as we pass a rough joint, sandpaperin my windpipe. I get an idea for a poemand pull my tiny notebook from my pocket.What was I going to write? I stall out mystifiedby the extra handin my jacket sleeve.…

by Connor Harding My brother used to pack things into his snowballs when we fought in the yard. Pine stems, mulch, washers, mud, spit and chicken bones—there were no rules in war back then, only losers and the slush on their necks. But he was competitive—always wound thin like twine. One winter he caught my…

by Miel MacRae “I’m raising your rent.” “Why?” “Market price,” you said. “Like a lobster?” “Starting first of the year.” “How much?” “Two hundred.” “I…I can’t afford that.” “Let me know by Friday if you’ll renew the lease.” “That’s in two days.” But instead, on Friday, when you went to your cushy home on Forest…

by Tiff M. Z. Lee When you’re married to a giant who is a farm, you don’t get time to rest. By the time the sun rises over the slope of his shoulders, you’ve collected eggs from the ducks and milk from the goats. You make a hearty omelette, garnished with tomatoes you jarred last…

Abdulrazaq Salihu I tell my story, from the genesisOf Sarkin pawa like country song On a patriot’s mouth. The radioFlourishes in broken signals in a distance That is yet to be of us,My not yet [dead] father; perfume In the world, whistles to the rhythmOf a sad song. I cannot let the evening takeMy people…

by Patricia Russo And now we’ve come to the age, the stage, when the children scream at night and are suddenly terrified of all sorts of things that they never paid attention to before, leafy branches, firetrucks, seagulls. This is expected. Your mother and my mother both told us it was coming. My mother said,…

by Alex Carrigan After Darren C. Demaree It runs in both sidesof your family. This beeris mostly piss. Youearned one after dinner.You understand moderation.You’ve been drunk before.You’re Irish, you can’thelp it. Better drunk athome than behind thewheel. Than while swimming.Than in public. Than ata wedding. Take anothersip. You’ll be fine. Youalready used “AlcoholismRuns in My…