by Dr. Jacek Blaszkiewicz “Now that’s a unique name,” the clerk replies to the boy in the blue slacks and blue polo with theembroidered crucifix. “Different. Not even attempting the last name.”The mother hovers behind Mieszko, her White Diamonds perfume penetrating the plexiglass likesmoke. She does not smile. Her resting deer-in-headlights pout matches the expression […]
by Victor Benito When rabid winds would snarl against our windows, Papi would rein our family into the hallway at the back of the house. He would make us crouch down while he turned off all the lights, and my mother lined us up along the walls. Then my parents would each sit on the
by Costantino Toth After “The Decameron” The cuss and valanga’s part of the duet. The mountain’s a dreaming orange, and you, you need a hard drink. This is routine, after all. Routine. A cloud making the evening strobe. You shouldering through trees for earshot, ringing like an empty glass. The mountain’s
by Max Pearson waltz: pectus excavatum through the peephole in the curtain, i seeoutside, where the wind howls and snow crashestitanium cymbals against my perspiring window. oblivious,you twist over in my bedsheets. half-asleep,my middle-school Justin Bieber blanket falls to revealthe soft scoop in your chest. i cup my handand make suction-cup sounds on the dentuntil
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by Willa Stonecipher My love is a city, and I must confess That the manholes scream sinner, That the trams resound symphonic screeches, Lurid and naked in primeval chords, That the common quiet alights With luminous smears of unshaded windowpanes. That I only take lovers who live off the Red Line, Nameless in my
by Amanda Hawk Watch your step-I tend to spark. My life has been built out of matchbooks.My childhood was wildfires before hopscotch, so I leap over fences with skinned knees,my emotions in my back pocket. I look for exit signs instead of open doors.Learn to memorize escape routes but not how to read a map.I
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by Jordyn Damato When I was a young girl I prayed to a glass bottle on the stained carpet in my closet and I beggedthe Lord to make me straight. I asked for a sign, I bargained with the man, I said, “if I come backto the bottle turned either direction as proof I’m not
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by James Croal Jackman the streetlights have that angelic glow.green sun with a halo or sickly lionmane. you tell me don’t tell the copsthat when we get pulled over. becausehalfway through the drive the treestaste extra sweet. that extra hintof mint we take to your friend’shouse with the glowing purplepool where kids throw pinesinto a
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by Romy Morreo Remember the time I coughed so hardI tore a lung?the microbes inside, dormant, held for decadesgot outinfiltrated my red cells, turned my fingerscarcinogenic, my feet clawed,my voice as venomous as my spitand my flesh crept necroticshrivelling from the inside like a burningscreaming mandrakeand my gums rotted, crawling, until all I could dowas
by Sambhu Ramachandran A squirrel was caughtin an electric fence.The smell of charred fleshas of a barbecue full-swing in hellcoated the air when wemoved in from the meadow’s edge.A swarm of flies whirredover its furry tail,limp upon the grass.A surge of current, perhaps,we surmised and sighed—Thank God, it wasn’t a man.But there was a hole