Nonfiction from Roman Cherevko
Original Photo: Julian Hochgesang The Pigeons Are Gone I didn’t notice when the feathered creatures disappeared, but something was wrong. I started analyzing my insomnia, looking for that small detail that could have changed my entire sleep-wake cycle. And here it was. No cooing from the kitchen hood as the birds perched on the rooftop […]
Nonfiction from Lori Yeghiayan Friedman
Original Photo: Umanoide The Emperor’s Dentist Something propelled this great-grandfather of mine to leave. With dental instruments strapped to his back, the sandstone spires of Cairo dusted, he headed southward on horseback with a third wife, a son from a former marriage, and six strong donkeys laden with rugs and silver, soon arriving in Addis […]
Fiction from Melissa Fitzpatrick
Photo: Mostafa Ashram Mostafa Only Water, Then Sky When you’re a fish, it doesn’t occur to you to look up, to try to see past the edge of the known world. There is only water, and how the water moves the kelp, and how the kelp moves with the water, back and forth, back and […]
Nonfiction from Gail DiMaggio
Photo: Marek Piwnicki Helpless Why didn’t we help, a neighbor asks me, though helping them wasn’t really possible and it’s too late now, anyway. Wolves, she adds. Even wolves help their own. I’m not sure she’s right about the wolves. I decide to look it up later. —§— It’s June, 2022. Concord, New Hampshire, our […]
Fiction from Alexis Jamilee Carter
Photo: Kind and Curious You’ve Left a Candle Burning, and It Seeks Revenge Henrietta St. Claire’s home is going up in flames. The fire department isn’t on the way. Neighbors huddle together across the street, whispering their horror and pity. They do not speak of their gratitude for detached housing. They all think the other […]
Poetry from Emma Bolden
Photo: Clay LeConey Joy Honestly it’s awful. How it haloes every tiny terrible thing with promise, even the forsythia, dying, already dead, melting to scum green, a sick yellow over the vase. Gray would be better, a more accurate approximation of the way joy balloons up the sky: it isn’t the Mylar sack, bright as […]
Poetry from Amy DeBellis
Photo: Alexander Gray Lazarus When you come back, I’ll be ready. No more murky mornings; no more cindery coffee, sinking half-lucid into the dreaming day. I’ll sculpt my bed into a morgue, a monastery. No sheets, no softness, just cold metal that stings like the cry of a bird: the only way to unravel my […]
Fiction from Claudia Monpere
Photo: Rob Humphrey How to Be Purple First there is no first. Purple has no sequence. lilac…..mauve…..heliotrope Purple swirls in rain puddles. Wisteria twining with crystal. Indigo nebula birthed from rippling walls. A trellis humming with grapes. Learn this language: bluebell grapes autumn royal moondrop kyoho sultana crimson seedless. Be a violet backed starling. These […]
Fiction from Madeline Graham
Photo: Jr Korpa The Better to Eat You With She worries meat from the lupine skull with a long and pointed knife. Her red cloak slung over the back of her chair. Blond braids caked in blood. Daisy bouquet upended on the floor. She tongues bristly fur, grinding gristle between her molars, tendons snap between […]
Poetry from Courtney Melvin
Photo: Dave Michuda Stir Every morning you ask Do you still love me? as if the night erased us. I say of course. I say you’re the father of my children. I say stop being silly. To admit that I’d stir your ashes into my coffee, drink you every day until your skin was my […]
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