FICTION By Steven Lang She was short and thick, with dry, blood­shot eyes and skin as white as the belly of a fish. Even when she was crying—which was often—tears rarely came. She’d rub the backs of her hands into her eyes until they reddened,…

CREATIVE NONFICTION By Kerry Neville “Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then. It is some­thing to think of, and it gives her a sort of dis­tinc­tion among her com­pan­ions. When is your turn to come?…

POETRY By Yael Valen­cia Aldana Alien, you are the best person I have met/not the strongest but the best/The worst thing you ever did I made you do/Drunk off our asses atop a ten-story apart­ment roof in Brooklyn/ I command you to climb down the…

FICTION By Mike Guerin She had been off in Aus­tralia, and quare places after that, for about twenty years. She only came home for her parents’ funeral. Carbon monox­ide poi­son­ing, like the canary in the ad. There was no carbon monox­ide poi­son­ing long ‘go ‘cos…

By Nadja Maril I lift the turquoise and purple shawl out of the storage drawer and drape it over my shoul­ders. The caress of the soft yarn against my skin trans­ports me to an earlier time and place. I hear the click­ing and buzz of insects through…

POETRY By Justin Smulski we split a tuna melt and some coffees at a truck stop just by the exit with four-dollar coin-op showers and a sign clar­i­fy­ing that one must pay before the shower and not after across the shining table with striped metal trim you held the top of my…

POETRY By Kim­ber­ly Ann Priest my mother writes in her journal under the heading: How did Grandpa pop the ques­tion? refer­ring to my father’s pro­pos­al, who, of course, is ‘grandpa’ to my chil­dren for whom this journal is written. & her answer seems to be…

POETRY By Andrew Payton Beyond the sanc­tu­ary and teach­ers’ barrio where your broth­ers are build­ing roads, I picked guayabas with our chil­dren who had never tasted that fruit. We knew the tree, its loca­tion in pines— burnt irri­ga­tion hose, chipped porce­lain— and we asked them to spare it…

POETRY By Andrew Payton If I spent every day­break on this balcony, the man walking three pugs would become ritual in the way I once knew the sched­ule of a fox who crossed the bay window on morn­ings snow covered tracks in the moun­tains. My wife and I…

POETRY By Marisa Lainson Every year she kills it, the orchid. I take comfort in this ritual, a riot of purple starved to bones. Sweet is the inevitabil­i­ty of her neglect. In girl­hood, I worked to emulate the shapes of her: the sharp wrists and hips,…