Like prying pods of milkweed so those astral seeds effuse— unseaming magazine ads for perfume. Anointing my wrists with scented glue, running each over the edge of a page, testing scents I aspired to buy and […]
Poetry
Emily Pulfer-Terino: Grunge & Glory
“You’re kidding. Tell me you’re kidding. At least I’ll know where to find my new wardrobe this year…in the nearest dumpster…talk about the Emperor’s New Clothes. Tsk, tsk.”—(Letter to the Editor)[1] What’s more glorious than a girl in a field, curled in the whorl of a deer bed, alfalfa haloing her dreams of […]
Muriel Nelson: Hope Is the Thing with Petals
With long nights, thick clouds, and everyone wearing black to look thin, now my commute in the rain is stopped at a crosswalk. Still. Stopped for a tiny black pencil of a woman pushing her cart of belongings (its plastic bag black, too) slowly so slowly but with such dignity that I will her safely […]
Sarah Elkins: From the Tall Grass
I floss at night after steak and butter. My house: unguarded range, bison huffing, ice-faced, hooves stamping an echo stutter. I do nothing in this boundless nothing. No thought, no synapse firing. Still hands still stained—berry juice of an empty morning. This room-less space, a translucent thin will through which I, good sow, […]
Sarah Elkins: Birthing
The summer before my son was born, I ate tomato sandwiches with mayonnaise, salt and pepper. The rain was so heavy in June, the fruit swelled on the vines and their skins ripped. I took big bites holding thick bread with two hands, pink rainwater running down both forearms to my elbows—everything reduced, then, […]
Rei Alta: I Outline the Hypotheses
I got this This is 101 I simply need to determine what a human woman should feel in this situation based on whether or not I can reject the null: H0 (null) = He’s a small person on a power trip Who never cared He wasn’t actually sick from bad Indian food Each time […]