• Avital Gad-Cykman ~ Babies

    When the par­rot went miss­ing, I put my hat on, took my father-in-law’s Peruvian cane with the carved par­rot, asked my hus­band to come home, placed his skates by the gate, and head­ed out, leav­ing the entrance door unlocked. The par­rot, Torrap, had –more

  • Eric Pankey ~ Four Poems

    MEDITATION AT RIO DEVA

    How to dis­tin­guish a trick
    Of the eye
    From wind in a chestnut

    Or wak­ing from dream
    Where boundaries
    Dissolve and give way

    The body strapped
    To its shadow
    Weighs no more

    The alphanu­mer­i­cal
    Values of letters
    Do not make the name

    Of –more

  • Jeff Friedman ~ Three Prose Poems

    Elijah

    I leave my aro­ma, strong enough to put out the lights or clear a room, to Cassie, my veg­an lover, who can use it to pro­tect her patch of veg­eta­bles and plants. I leave a pile of hair to my pil­low, to the many dust bun­nies leap­ing from room to –more

  • Claire Polders ~ Four Micro Fictions

    Specialties

    On the ter­race across the street below the elms in fick­le light, you eat dish­es that are nei­ther here nor there. Facing the canal, you low­er your spoon into your bowl of soupçon and come up emp­ty, as though the dash of salt is just –more

  • Edward Hardy ~ Apology #9: Not About The Toaster

    I’m typ­ing here because Larry the elec­tri­cian has just—and I know it’s Larry because can I see his lean beard­ed fig­ure through the upstairs office win­dow as he stands before the front door hold­ing that green cell phone, which near­ly glows in –more

  • David Gilbert ~ A Life in Photos

    1

    She demand­ed an expla­na­tion.  At the photographer’s request, she stood next to him and smiled at the cam­era until it flashed but she was not in the pho­to.  The pho­tog­ra­ph­er was adamant that some­thing was wrong with her not his cam­era.  He took –more

  • Craig Fishbane ~ The New Kids

    It was not sur­pris­ing that Tomás and Julio were hav­ing anoth­er argu­ment. Ever since Shukura had left last month, most of the stu­dents were on edge. All of our chil­dren from Egypt and Bangladesh were now gone and no one was sure which group would be –more

  • Gary Percesepe ~ Transition

    January 2, 2017

    I was telling Joelle I was almost fin­ished read­ing her mem­oirs. I’d been read­ing them side by side, an odd way to read, sort of like an old two-columned Ashbery poem, or an obscure pas­sage from Derrida’s Glas. Derrida was some­thing –more

  • Lucinda Kempe ~ Platooning

    The damn cat has dis­ap­peared again. Truth is, I’d turned the hose on him as I was clean­ing the cat box out­side dur­ing a spell of warmer weather.

    Get the fuck out Orayo,” I’d bellowed.

    I clean the cats’ box­es, vac­u­um their lit­ter off the floor, –more

  • Charles Rafferty ~ The Light Made Everything Harder to See

    Tommy was on his way to the 7‑Eleven to buy con­doms. He had offered to use Saran Wrap and a rub­ber band, but Sheila was­n’t game. They had just met and they had both been drink­ing, but appar­ent­ly not enough. Tommy felt relieved when she sug­gest­ed the –more

  • Randall Brown & Pamela Painter ~ Two Pieces

    Battle

    Her orange dress and the but­ter­fly hat and the edge of woods. She is say­ing she built a fort and I am yelling out my win­dow that I’m not allowed out today.

    Bella,” my moth­er yells from where she is patch­ing Dad’s work shirts in the kitchen,  “Get –more

  • Joan Wilking ~ Neuropathy Trilogy

    Neuropathy

    –more

  • Glen Pourciau ~ Stretcher

    Early evening on a Friday, wine and cheese time at the inn where we checked in only an hour ago, and we’re seat­ed just out­side the door to the serv­ing area, wrought-iron table and chairs on the edge of a court­yard, a foun­tain bab­bling with­in earshot.  –more

  • Tamara Burross-Grisanti ~ Four Stories

    Broken Cakes

    Autumn is my bur­den. My morn­ings come mid-after­noon. I crawl out of bed by the light between the pur­ple vel­vet cur­tains from my failed sec­ond-mar­riage bed­room. I take a swig of vod­ka to wet my cracked lips, light a cig­a­rette on the fumes of my next –more

  • Sheldon Lee Compton ~ After Watching Ido Mizrahy’s Film Gored — July 9, 2015

    I couldn’t real­ly say why I hadn’t killed the bull. Not right away, when every­one kept ask­ing. I struck at it sev­er­al times in the exact spot I should, but I could not sink the blade. I couldn’t say to my friends inside the vehi­cle what had hap­pened, –more

  • Sandra Kolankiewicz ~ Two Poems

    Before the Desert

     
    Before the desert, I shook trees for
    you, beat bush­es, trav­eled far and wide, high
    and low, both inside and out through the course
    of unfor­tu­nate con­se­quences, the
    def­i­n­i­tion of matu­ri­ty that
    I final­ly rec­og­nize –more

  • Gail Louise Siegel ~ As Vulnerable As We Are

    2013-01-20 13.41.52Far above: a jet descends. As if pulled by an invis­i­ble hand behind a mag­net­ic game board.

    Gods play with car and boat and plane-shaped pawns from the oth­er side.

    Throw the die, and tokens scoot along. Go to jail or plum­met down to hell.

    Twin engines –more

  • Hillary Fifield ~ Nice to Meet You

    I wake and search for my phone beneath my pil­low where I store it night­ly. Glare from the win­dow cov­ers the screen. I drop under the sheets, blan­ket, and duvet. I’m held as if embraced, but it’s only my hair that smells like skin and cotton.

    My –more

  • David Gilbert ~ Stupa

    When we were with­in an hour of the stu­pa, Thurston final­ly showed me the pho­to of it.  We’d stopped so he could take a nitro­glyc­erin tablet from the bot­tle he’d bought in India.  He looked toward the top of the moun­tain and smiled despite –more

  • Mary Lannon ~ All the Stray Cats of the World

    Oprah will die! Oprah will die! Oprah will die! you think as you pump gas at Gas on the Go on Thanksgiving Day. You mean to send her no bad kar­ma, of course. It’s mere­ly a fact. Still, it seems more shock­ing than oth­er deaths. Oprah will die! Oprah –more