I fold orange construction paper along the lines the teacher drew in Sharpie. My son beside me—six, gap-toothed, entirely absorbed—creases his own with unsteady fingers, his tongue poking from the corner of his mouth like
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Mathieu Parsy ~ Paper Tigers
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John Holman ~ Strawberry
My older brother Clay had come to visit me in Georgia for my 66th birthday, but our plans were interrupted when a neighbor needed a ride to the emergency room. I couldn’t say no, of course, so we turned off the pre-game analysis for an NBA finals
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Julie Benesh — Intermittence
Be quiet and let the poem (unlike life) end on together—Mark Halliday
After midnight at the Hy-Vee
on First Avenue, summer ‘75,
my mother and I, disguised as shoppers,
people-watch the round man in the -
Peter Krumbach ~ Eight Short Shorts
Phone Call with Mei, Age 85
How did he look? I asked. He seemed skinnier, she said. People look thinner in the casket, I said. And they put so much makeup on him, she said, I don’t like seeing rouge on the corpse. Me neither, I said. So how was the
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Naomi Hsu ~ Swedish Death Cleaning
We were at the mall in Palo Alto, the nicer one, looking at the Prada bag display, and that was when you told me about the new book you read, The Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, a method ofdecluttering your home
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Awards for NWWQ writers
Congratulations to Pamela Painter (“When Flashers Meet”) and Nora Wagner (“A Sky Full of Clouds”) whose NWWQ stories have been chosen for the Wigleaf Top 50.
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April 2025 Issue
Open for submissions 4/1/25 — 4/15/25
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Peter Leight ~ Four Poems
Western
The horizon backs up
the landscape
is full of real estate.
The light is bright
then goes out
altogether. Roundup—it’s time to consolidate.
Trot and gallop
then sag. Straighten out
in order to circulate.
Red hills pop up
in baby blue air.The
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Barbara Westwood Diehl ~ Four Pieces
After Math
Were we ever the algebraic equation we thought we were. Symmetric at each step. A marriage of tuxedo, satin dress. Matched as brackets. As parentheses of veil, lapels, clasped hands. A mathematical certainty. At least a paradigm for certainty. The
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Michael Thériault ~ An Enviable Life
Matteus told me he believed the dog was stolen. One moment it was with him outside the corner grocery on Mission, on the sidewalk where he spends his days waiting to see Camila, the next, gone. I’m a store regular. I know
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Lori Barrett ~ Oppositional Defiance
Delores woke to a wheezing sound, floating up from the heating vent, a sound similar to what she heard when her daughter still lived in the bedroom below and thought no one could hear her cry. Now away at college, Tillie was
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Joshua Hebburn ~ The Window
On the second floor of a beige stucco dingbat apartment complex in my Dad’s neighborhood there’s a window with blue curtains. I’m often visiting my Dad, lately. After (or sometimes during) a visit I take a walk. The window
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Katherine D. Stutzman ~ Prayer
It is almost Halloween, and the little girl is in costume as a ballerina: a fluffy skirt of pink tulle, a shiny plastic tiara on her head, thin slipper-shoes on her feet. But no tights because the day is unseasonably hot.
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Kim Magowan ~ Recommendations
Last night, I had a dream in which my ex-girlfriend Pamela sent me an escalating series of outrageous requests. In her first email, the subject of which was REQUEST, Pamela informed me that she was applying to study alternative
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Richard Hoffman ~ Five Poems
Next to Nothing
A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire
organism participates. — Charles SimicI was just about to understand the graph
the sun through the blinds made on my desk,
when a cloud, as -
Lydia Gwyn ~ Two Poems
Memory of Arms
The neighbor’s chimney cinders the air in a new breed of fall days. I walk through, breathe it in, merge with it. My side of the forest, bare-limbed and damp. Beyond the fence, back fields hold the steps of my children running through, cautious of
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Mary Grimm ~ The Ghost President
It had not been necessary to vote for the ghost president. I remembered this at odd times, when they seemed more tangible. For instance when they were giving a speech on television and they were less transparent than usual, when you could see the gleam
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Scott Garson ~ Tell Me What It Is
1. Nothing.
2. Just something on my phone, that’s right.
3. Words.
4. What time’s soccer practice?
5. Nothing really. It’s just—I need—
6. What if we just step outside?
7. What if we—
8. Let’s sit.
9. Right here.
10. Sit down.
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Francine Witte ~ 2 AM at the Booth Bay Diner
Roy orders the fries. He knows by now that his cheapo friends, Megan, Scott, and Wendy, will eat most of them, so he makes it a double. He wishes for once in their goddamn lives they would offer to chip in. Okay, maybe not Megan, who he hopes, like
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Chila Woychik ~ A Lost Sister Lyric: Coyotes Against an Empty Sky
For my sister
They say coyotes are related to wolves in family and genus. We have few wolves in Iowa, but a coyote can be found at the abundance side of every corn row, and behind each stalled tractor. One stood in our driveway a few years back, stared