• Vincent Barry ~ That “Nimrod”

    .… MEDCAT. The Bar. Driver’s license knowl­edge test. Jeez! It’s like prep­ping for an exam. But can you prep for death with twen­ty par­lor game ques­tions? … Twenty Questions. You remem­ber— oh, of course not. Well before your time. –more

  • Myna Chang ~ Daily Special

    Not much to see in Tascadora, Texas. Rough strip of road, two liquor stores, three church­es. The Happy Harvest Grocery, its park­ing lot smooth as buttercream.

    Tessa holes-up in her mini­van next to the cart return cage. Red vel­vet is the cake of the –more

  • Kim Magowan ~ The Physics of Motion

    I. Friction

    When they kick her and Ethan and baby Rose out of the hos­pi­tal, Iris thinks how could they be so irre­spon­si­ble? She has no idea how to care for a baby. Look at the fucked up way Ethan installed the car seat. First home, Rose vom­its breast –more

  • Kurt Olsson ~ Five Poems

    Mats

    Sonny and I are look­ing for floor mats for his car. Store after store, hun­dreds upon hun­dreds of mats. No luck. Finally, I take out a knife, tell him I’ll cut myself in two and Sonny can use me as a floor mat. We’ll star –more

  • Steve Chang ~The Plague Book of Prayers

    Antibody

    Where did this heli­copter think it was head­ed? To a protest. Wildfire. High-speed pur­suit. This is New Los Angeles. I almost wrote wildlife for wild­fire. That’s where I’m head­ed, I think, soon. –more

  • Josh Russell ~ Four Essays

    For Dexys Midnight Runners

    One day after school, on a side­walk in Northern Kentucky, three hicks beat me up. Earlier, in the lunch­room, a cheer­leader named Dawn asked me to smell a jar of Noxzema. When I bent to sniff, she –more

  • Craig Kirchner ~ Four Poems

    Summer Rehearsal

    People took to us but whis­pered. We talked to every­one. No anx­i­ety. Free. Clowns in a medieval play, reach­ing like new blooms in beat sum­mer sun. We feigned opera in leather jack­ets, drank cran­ber­ry cor­dial from plas­tic cups. Cross-dressed at hap­py –more

  • NWWQ ~ APRIL 2023

    Thanks to all who sub­mit­ted. NWWQ will accept sub­mis­sions again July 1–14, 2023. Special thanks to our Senior edi­tors Elizabeth Wagner and Kim Chinquee for select­ing much of the work pub­lished in this  quar­ter­ly issue.

  • M. Bela Sas ~ The Verb of Living Things

    The red-haired Polish teacher, Kasia, stood up at the front of the room in chic white pants with the white chalk in her hands. Today we would talk about food, she said. Pomodory: toma­toes; ziem­ni­a­ki: pota­toes. –more

  • Kip Knott ~ Family Reunion

    I knew my father would come for me even­tu­al­ly. But I’m deter­mined not to let the nick-nick of lock picks shake me off the mid-cen­tu­ry mod­ern set­tee I bought on my own rather than accept his bequeathed over­sized sofa. I set my jaw tight.

    –more

  • Kathleen Flenniken ~ Five Poems

    Five-Paragraph Essay on Time

    More than once, but only a few times,
    I set an alarm for 5 a.m.
    and blew off my high school essays
    to watch TV. It rang
    and I left my warm bed to shiver
    at the desk in the liv­ing room window.

    Nervous about fin­ish­ing, no chance to revise,
    I dou­ble-spaced –more

  • James Kangas ~ Four Stories

    Pictures

    Too blus­tery and wet to go out, I sit down with a box of old pho­tos. Here’s one of Aunt Esther in a spiffy hat with my broth­er Bob in 1940 or ’41 on the stoop of a house in Detroit where he was born, a cou­ple of years before she gave birth to her –more

  • Anna Mantzaris ~ Application To Be the Brightest Star In the Universe

    What is your form? Solid? Liquid? Gas?

    Are you afraid of heights?

    Have you ever left the atmosphere?

    Can you keep your­self occu­pied in thought?

    Are you able to take on a lifes­pan of a few hun­dred mil­lion years?

    Do you want to explode –more

  • Rick Rohdenburg ~ Six Poems

    In Those Days

    Weeks had only one Friday. Life was sim­pler as there was less to antic­i­pate. The grass was no green­er but had beau­ti­ful tints of deep blue. It did not snow often but when it did some were awed by its silence. The shad­ows of the day were the ordi­nary –more

  • Ann Weil ~ Five Poems

    Blood of the Banana

    For Troy, Brian, Alexandria, Arielle, Guadalupe, John, Nate and X

    The flower pod hung
    low and heavy,
    a gor­geous appendage
    dangling
    two feet below
    the bunch.

    If left to nature,
    it would ooze
    its latex, clear at first,
    then crim­son –more

  • David Gilbert ~ The Rapture on Five Dollars a Day

    The lawn chairs rose in the air as if the Rapture was leav­ing the right­eous behind. When the towns­folk saw their pas­tor in a chair, they won­dered why they were stand­ing in their back­yards. They shout­ed for an expla­na­tion but –more

  • Kathleen McGookey ~ In My Hometown Library

    I sat with a poet I loved like a father, read­ing poems. They were my poems, and I want­ed to know what to do. Let me say this kind of dream has nev­er come to me before. I passed man­u­script pages to the poet I loved like a father, and he passed them –more

  • Marc Tweed ~ When Someone You Love Leaves Very Early in the Morning

    On a very sad night—sad because Donna leaves ear­ly the next morn­ing and that is exact­ly the kind of thing I’ve become less and less able to bear with any grace—I sit hunched for­ward in the reclin­er in the guest room –more

  • Jeffrey Thompson ~ Five Poems

    Lonesome George

    Maybe you won every battle
    but the last. Maybe you didn’t
    fight at all. In the end
    you found a warm spot by the window
    where you could nurse your coffee
    the whole work­ing day.

    Killing Time

    1.
    When the bad thoughts come,
    My shrink tells me,
    –more

  • Bryan D. Price ~ The History of Sound

    Last night I had a dream that I was dying or about to die. Some organs had been removed from my body. They looked like lit­tle wood­en knobs. They were said to be lungs. Excuse the pas­sive voice, but dreams are ruled by the –more