by Abigail E. Sims I ride in from the desert. Creosote sticks to my boots, the oil-slick smell of the last gas station still lingering on my hair. Hungry, tired, resentfully aching for the sound of small talk thanks to a broken radio in the old truck. The road stretches out behind and ahead, the same… [Read More]
Witness Magazine
The Water Is Not the Faucet
by Ayotola Tehingbola I remember the first time we had sex. Or tried to. It was eleven years ago, at his studio apartment in Manchester. I was twenty-nine, a broke graduate student who flew to another continent to spend two months with someone who might or might not like her. On my first night there, after… [Read More]
Sin of Omission
by Aya Moret Aliyah’s hands are covered in shit but she doesn’t care. She’s been at this for twenty-minutes, plunging away, getting more violent with each thrust. The toilet gurgles as she peels the rubber cup away from the orifice it has sealed off. Brown water isn’t supposed to splash. But splash it does, and… [Read More]
Both Ways
by Victoria Hulbert My husband sits across from me in the living room next to his boyfriend. They’ve suggested Go Kart World, that sad racetrack off the 405, and I’ve agreed because I know the kids will love it. It’s eleven on a Saturday morning. My husband’s boyfriend has made us coffee from the beans he… [Read More]
Valentine for Jack Spicer
by Jasmine Dreame Wagner Neither a silk rose nor a candy heart I give you an opinion It’s an overbaked swan in wax paper It’s lethal as a lover It will bind you with Tuesday If I’m lucky my opinion Will haunt your opinion of me Its wings black and shiny Garbage bags. Fine The swan… [Read More]
Valencia
by Sacha Bissonnette Author’s note: The piece blends some of my experience with some fictional creative takes. If I must label it, it’s somewhere between very creative nonfiction and fiction, loosely based on my recent observations and conversations while traveling with friends that are far from a place called home. When Javier’s fingers run along… [Read More]
The Universe is Not Locally Real
by Patrick Kindig Scientific American, 6 Oct. 2022 Patrick Kindig is assistant professor of English at Tarleton State University. He is the author of the chapbook all the catholic gods (Seven Kitchens Press 2019) and the micro-chapbook Dry Spell (Porkbelly Press 2016) as well as the academic monograph Fascination: Trance, Enchantment, and American Modernity (Louisiana State… [Read More]
Steps to Becoming You, Me, Mine
by Irene Villaseñor *Your Rivulet Silhouette is in 04 degrees of Delinquenting Pisces Due to being on the tenth houseplant cusp (MIDHEAVEN), you are very sensitive to your own swallowing, so other perfectionists’ felonies become your felonies. Try to avoid the most negative of perfectionists because your terrors’ desires to empathize with them will make… [Read More]
Postmemory, 1991
by Chelsea Dingman Chelsea Dingman’s first book, Thaw, won the National Poetry Series (UGA Press, 2017). Her second book, through a small ghost, won The Georgia Poetry Prize (UGA Press, 2020). Her third collection I, Divided, is forthcoming from LSU Press in the November 2023. She is also the author of the chapbook, What Bodies Have… [Read More]
Paris Lingers on the Nose
by Grace Holtzclaw Gargoyle raptor cathedral Roquefort rot cloche Hôtel de Médicis Room 27 Cold cut crystal Caves of Tattinger Plumes of perfumes and opium Don’t you love her madly When she’s strung out On the floor Grace Holtzclaw is a music journalist based in Los Angeles. Her poetry has been featured in the Los Angeles… [Read More]
Lament for Bears Who Wander Downtown
by Becka Mara McKay “A black bear made its way into the Union Depot parking ramp early Thursday morning.” St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 20, 2020 Becka Mara McKay is a poet and a translator of Hebrew literature. She directs the Creative Writing MFA at Florida Atlantic University, where she serves as faculty advisor to Swamp… [Read More]
Hymn to the Dioscuri
by Fortunato Salazar Petite uncle actor at anchor .and deep Stygian acquaintance .you and you I don’t know how you go (go on) apart after so much doctrine, a bed at night a canopy in the day .dosel .you don’t dent won’t wear my print good money, hungry I’m about to fall into the source of… [Read More]