Quick as a fishhook flared into the water, the way hip rubs against hip intentionally unintentional on the dance floor, furtive as a glance at someone else’s bank statement, palmed like a cigarette in the rain, the fingers exploratory, an insect’s antennae, twitching to capture texture to populate the hinterlands of a long winter night […]
Issue 79
Julie Ritter: 5:43am
My father was a hive Even strangers came home to him Before he got sick, we were sheafy, nested until something dire awoke in the dark pith of his bones like a fungus weakens the tree All systems were choked & hectic like a root ball We waited for him to rise and untangle himself […]
Adam Nussbaum: Funeral Arrangement
Not buried, not cremated, he asked to be recorded- ground up, mixed with wax, molded, & according to prints lifted from the stained Olds’ steering wheel, handles of hammers & golf club grips, the onyx disc was grooved. We circled the player. Mom dropped the needle, & through the hiss we hoped for a symphony. […]
Carley Moore: The First Between
The dog three stories down barks in bullets and captions. He’s Pac-man. He’s hungry. He’s right. The cat three stories up dislodges himself from his bed to move his water bowl and upturn his remaining food. He’s the self-made pigeon of the hall, the king of lumbering small, and the czar of surprise wake-up calls. […]
Amy Hosig: Shrimp
Bless these shrimp from Sing Hing Restaurant that I am about to eat, that spent their life, hopefully, jetting about in odd, propulsive motion without minds and before language. Oh you little shrimp who involuntarily died for me, make me, like the intelligent whale, able to change you into song.
Tess Taylor: Landscape
My grandmother taught me it is always Margaret we grieve for. I watch her sleep, catheter in. When she’s awake she’s partly here, leapfrogging. into lacunae of pasts, poor Elly who Emeline took in despite having 12 children already, the mountain doctor coming the day she prayed that God not take Nancy. He took a […]