Everywhere drafts like dead wings beating. We reach for a language, late at night it slips over us a giant seamless glove. We can’t get warm anymore. Even our feet shiver and under our skin a blue longing– like violets in the bones, like bones abandoned to petals, to the teeth of petals.
Issue 95
Jayson Iwen: 1.4.3
You might dream of a poolside party Where you bump into an old classmate You thought had died years before With whom you’d never spoken Our military was so strong It would break its own neck She said I’ll be in the last room on the left And left You might wake to find […]
Jayson Iwen: .1.4.2
In the night you lean Over the baby, to make sure it’s okay The baby wakes terrified A dark animal shape looms From the fear within you Modeling itself in […]
Jayson Iwen: .1.4.1
You have descended from animals Who descended from angels Who alone have descended From the darkness of their own choice Where nothing holds its shape for long Hold out your hand And feel for rain The pain of sex My great grandmother taught my grand With […]
Sarah Kain Gutowski: Chapter IX: The Children Find Her Sleeping
On waking, she found a pair of small hands cupped her cheeks. The little girl’s face had replaced the moon, and her brother orbited, making small, impatient sighs and grunts as he tried to find, in that cramped space, a better view. The girl moved her hands from the woman’s cheeks and ran a finger […]
Sarah Kain Gutowski: Chapter VIII: She Removes the Stitches
The fire in the hearth sparked and fumed. The clocks struck the hour in one long reprimand, their faces closed to further discussion. They ticked the seconds begrudgingly. The whole room seemed angry, as if each object mourned her loss of the little bird, its potential friendly noise and chaos, its brief disruption of stasis […]