Issue 18

POETRY By Michelle Parker Randall You tell me I’ve given you some­thing impos­si­ble. You shake your head to the rhythm of my voice pealing you are safe, safe; you hold out your hands, wrists togeth­er, for hand­cuffs only you can see. Our son visited today, but…

POETRY By Heikki Huotari if aurora bore­alis­es are any indi­ca­tion the extrater­res­tri­als are at peace and the def­i­n­i­tion of life is accord­ing­ly revised      the random acts and I are inde­pen­dent and iden­ti­cal­ly dis­trib­uted so sing it side­ways what’s a wan­der­ing eye or appendage to do …

POETRY By Sheila Black Go lightly. The way pain enters each day. Light the candle of flowers that blooms half-des­ic­­cat­ed on the road­side. South Texas, south San Anto. The truck was parked through the hot morning. No one heard the cries that rose from it. Or recognized…

POETRY By Luke Johnson and Megan Mer­chant For M,   We could talk about the baby hump­back who washed ashore with a belly of trash and the net used for catch­ing thou­sands of fish. How chil­dren circled to see its slick skin flake in the sun of…

POETRY By Al Mag­innes We’d decided we didn’t need the new guy before he arrived. But he was a good worker, good enough for some of us to recon­sid­er letting him go. Until the morning he began to speak from nowhere about zebras and their yearn­ing for the…

FICTION By Chris Daly 1. Pre­lim­i­nary Report, with notes and “eyes-only” mate­r­i­al, includ­ing  recov­ered com­mu­ni­ca­tions, from the days prior to the inci­dent which has  come to the atten­tion of so many, sub­mit­ted by Sr. Vol­un­teer Patrol Officer  Childe Gordon, BS Crim­i­nal Justice Theory, BA English Lit, Bonito…

POETRY By William Jackson Lofton we know what is true, Christ did not destroy the stone but rolled it. turned over on a Sunday, i met a boy’s back begin­ning an early morning beg: claw at me here. his nose carries a hook a jeweler once knew. maybe this…

POETRY By Neil Flatman  For Matthew Wearing-in mourning’s lack­lus­ter suit, I took a walk: heather, like toffee-brittle Christ­mas trees, the copper edge of curling gorse illu­mi­nat­ing the way. You should’ve been here   a week ago. You said the Japan­ese had a phrase for it; Beauty in the…

POETRY By Heikki Huotari some animal con­cate­na­tions were more prob­a­ble than others      as intel­li­gent as any echo mech­a­nism my accelerom­e­ter at odds with my thought process­es the problem of hard solip­sism was not solved      I did not think to ask I…

POETRY By Kyle D. Craig If any­thing must fall on us, let it be morning. Tonight’s stories strike like knives through thick bone. I still cannot name half the places where bombs knelt last night. I know not every­one has access to ocean views, for many no forest waits to wander through, not…