by Edith Lidia Clare after Albert Leung sorrow is real-er, like the moon; all we do in comparison is as illusory as mirror-glass, or trees: as anything a cloud of dust can light upon, heap softly over, be rinsed from. tonight, as this storm twists the trees, as roof & leaf sounds wrap the house,… [Read More]

by Hannah Seo I like to set unfocused eyes on the skyline, render every manmade thing invisible, imagine bodies separated by feet of empty air, stories high— asleep and suspended, or climbing increments of ether, hovering stacked and facing every which way gaze fixed a few feet ahead mesmerized by something that does not exist…. [Read More]

by Shaun T. Griffin   Ten years ago an Iraqi Vet walked into my poetry workshop at the prison.  Here’s one version of how it might have saved his life and brought us—soldier and teacher—together.  Bear with me:  this might sound like fiction—but it was an ornery fiction that ripples through us still.  Let’s say… [Read More]

by Allison Grace Myers From the beginning, you created my heaviness and my easiness. Before you, my daughter (never known, never named, at least not by me), my shape was slippery, a cross too light to bear, an empty vol-au-vent—that flaky buttery pastry filled with vegetable or meat or maybe fish, on the menu at… [Read More]

by Nic Anstett When Anya arrives at a new town, she searches the mom-and-pop stores first. She knows that their pickings will be slim. Before the collapse the chances of a two-story house converted into a downtown pharmacy carrying spiro, estradiol, or progesterone was unlikely. Now it is near impossible. She keeps her expectations low… [Read More]

by Robert Herbst Sliding gravel, clatter of falling rocks, a fine mist of red dust. When the man glanced back, the boy was sitting on the ground, examining a fresh wound on his knee. The boy frowned in concentration, his mouth ajar. He traced a finger along the trickle of blood, brought it to his… [Read More]

by Michelle Thomas Madison was a new student in the Detroit Waldorf school’s second grade, a class spoiled by three bad girls.  Nikola! Emily! Beth! Teachers usually hollered their names. But the bad girls kept right on balancing on the log-fence that surrounded the playground, deaf as cats. Or tipping slinkies down the stairs two… [Read More]

by Shaun T. Griffin for Greg Having served seven years before the cancer came, the tattoos scrawled up your broken wrist, no room for the dark survey of this grubbing art. Drummer who didn’t believe he could be hurt— you symbolized what the other men wanted: freedom between the lines. Hard to chain those words… [Read More]

by Ashley Hughes Naomi is having her breakfast, breaking her bread, inspecting her husband. Nancy leans against the kitchen table until it creaks and then keeps leaning. This bothers her. Nancy chews so that she can hear him, right over the kettle’s whistle. He eats off the plate she made for him, bites off the… [Read More]

by Dariana Guerrero After June Jordan Alone tonight and I am always alone/ I hear the whistle of the wind and mistake it for the shadow of a man/ I can’t walk without thinking about how noticeable my body is/ my floppy arms/ stomach gutting out like a well-worn tire/ the men look for a… [Read More]

by Tomaž Šalamun translation by Brian Henry are angels green? can heaven sustain them? workers have a mouth, a face, a gait and children little sheep lick the grass, tigers tear meat water is always scooped up near the shore I saw that a rainbow had fallen shepherds swam over it I waved, I waved,… [Read More]

by Sandra Fees everything comes to an end like an exhausted star dangling from winter’s throat. look at you now. who would know you—supergiant of joy and boldness— are in your death throes. don’t linger like a soured lover. scatter. be quick about it.       Sandra Fees has been published in SWWIM, Nimrod,… [Read More]