“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” —W.E.B. DuBois Tamir Rice was shot twice within seconds of two cleveland police officers arriving on the scene. He was 12 years old, brandishing an airsoft gun, and guilty of playing while black. He died the following day from the… [Read More]
Witness Magazine
Blue Faced Honeyeater by Aiden Baker
Over the years, my wife developed peculiar habits. The strangest, my favorite, is the way she will, on occasion, scrunch up her face and give birth to fruit. The first time she did it we were at the zoo. We’d spent the day wandering along the gravel paths, pointing at elephants and tigers and spitting… [Read More]
Nor Any Know I Know The Art & ’Tis News As Null As Nothing by Edward Mayes
“NOR ANY KNOW I KNOW THE ART” The question is how can you get the temporary To last longer, finger food, ur-language scrawled On an original wall, everyone read it, everyone Jumped into the first fire, those who have Forgotten how to say the rosary in the rose Garden, or in the orto where the… [Read More]
The Scooter-Rickshaw Driver by Bipin Aurora
I wanted to go home to Sarita Vihar and I walked up to the scooter-rickshaw on the side of the road. I asked the driver to take me there. “No,” he said. “No?” I said. “I am not going in that direction. I am going Jumna-paar (across the Jumna River).” “I will give you five… [Read More]
Orbit by Nancy Chen Long
Clack, clack, clack goes the ace-of- hearts clothes-pinned to the back tire. Round and round and round the black wheels spin. A desert wind blows my black hair back. From the handlebars, canary-yellow tassels flutter. “Fly, Nan, fly,” my father, jogging beside me, laughs as he pushes the bike, sending me off on my own…. [Read More]
The Golden Telescope by Jose Hernandez Diaz
I found a 19th century golden telescope in the attic of an old house I bought to fix up. The house was located downtown, by the lake. The golden telescope was covered in an old cardboard box with spider webs. Written on the box was the phrase, “The Stars Are Only the Beginning of Our… [Read More]
On Learning Your Birth Mother Might Have Watched You Swing by Jennifer H. Dracos-Tice
Six years old, hair streaming, you pointed your toes toward the undersides of maples branching through powerlines looping over the school yard. You rose from your seat, thumped on the downswing, pulled the chains, leaned into the next up-swerve. Did you kick your saddle shoes into the littered leaves, did you launch into crinkled… [Read More]
Touchless Entry by Hadara Bar-Nadav
Everyone is alive somehow mowing dead grass and fighting pizza boxes into a recycling bin. Things don’t fit right or is that me descending a staircase, splintering apart beneath the morning’s blowtorch sun. … [Read More]
Letter to a Mỹ Lai Mother by Jade Hilde
You’ve always been asked-told you are “Mỹ lai,” meaning American, meaning white. You’ve always been halved. Even though we share the same body, you won’t remember me. Because we became unrecognizable to each other. For what felt like an endless period of time, despite the fact that, by the calendar, it was only a year… [Read More]
Sojourn by Christopher Linforth
Mateo, it is very late. Let me try once more. A few years after the war, I left Hrvatska without a word and started my life again in Norway. Even as I stepped onto the plane, I knew you would be unaware for some time of the circumstances surrounding my abrupt departure. At that moment,… [Read More]
The Little Mermaid by Jennifer Lorene Ritenour
Her scales are the size of silver dollars. Her green hair mystically covers her breasts. Water drips from her fin and turns into pearls that she strings with the thread of her hair. Her pinky nail is the needle. She sits on a rock in the middle of the night, waiting for the boats full… [Read More]
The New Avenues the Only Avenues We Have
by Christopher Citro There were some of us going to become musicians. Some standing in the blue dark beneath lake trees as stars emerged. Some of us— I don’t know what some of us were thinking— for proof the lives we’ve lead since then. I’m learning the creaks of this new house, grow a neuron… [Read More]