Issue 19

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,…

POETRY By Shannon Marzel­la Brook­lyn, you were a hot mouth of wolf- hunger. Those nights, you ate me whole, ribs & every­thing, then spit out an acidic sunrise–orange blis­ters split and cack­ling, or maybe it was you pouring laugh­ter, filthy and bright. I forgot every­thing but the cross painted…

POETRY By Michael Rogner I have basil burst­ing bodies emerg­ing garlic sig­nal­ing the under­ground life has life left tomato vines strain­ing while the asshole jays poke holes in every fruit we all want the toma­toes inside us we harvest seeds in barrels feed them to clouds left…

POETRY By Tamara Kreutz When my hand finally braves the wilder­ness between my legs, I find its oasis gone —dry, a desert, and despite the distant thun­der­ing inside me, no rain will fall upon this dry earth. Our daugh­ter has sucked me to deple­tion, but you ask…

POETRY By Summer Hardinge When she writes, Ya need dogs for company, I almost feel as if I need to own one. As a child, I could tame any ram­bunc­tious pup, wild cat, or tena­cious pony. Some­thing like an empa­thet­ic nerve. The dogs in my neigh­bor­hood sense it,…

POETRY By Stephanie Kirby Each birth brings the body closer to death: a birthing body splits like rot, equal in burden to falling trees. Its weight: almost leaf­less.  There is nothing left except a tree in decline, housing life. This anatomy is not so different:…