by Monica Kagan Slipping between the stones,I search for words clamped to rocks like leeches.One by one they fall and float away. Sagging into the water – she calls.Her voice penetrates my skin.Her tongue coils around my lungs. In the depths of my consciousness,thoughts splinter like a shattered vase.I lurch forward. Limbs numb,seaweed shrouds my body.Her echoes surround me. Searching Read More
Author: Andre
For Thieves and Travelers
by Karen Shepherd Give the traveler bright moonlight but give the thief darkness. Mtembezi mpe mwezi, mpe kiza mwizi.– Swahili Proverb To thieves, give darkness. Strip the sky of stars,obstruct the paths with webs of maple roots.Hang thorny vines from broken limbs to creakin winds. Allow no safeguards in this night. Detect the hurried clamber, running farwith our character hidden Read More
Rainy Season
by Annie Bien blinds the savannahblowing toward Kilimanjaro. The horizon, streaked in dark diagonals,drains to a yawning sun, coloring cloud billows in pinks and orange. Thomson gazelles have watchedundaunted as thunderous downpourssoak their coats,for so long as hyenabellies stay round and taut,unhungry for meat and bone, the grazers can walk with ease under morning shadows. Wild Read More
The Cairn on the Beach
by Annie Bien Artha’s feet sank into sand, the tide swept waves forward, ocean swarmed his legs, stung his ankle wounds. He cringed, dreading the whip, shouts, lacerations. He sank torso deep. Stay still. No more fire, collapsing wood, temple crashing, shouts, running, no darted thigh, falling. He remembered the boy blowing into his trunk, whispering: “No more whips, marigold Read More
Baby Elephant
by Farhana Khalique Baby Elephant is trying to sit in my lap again. I groan and uncross my legs and she half rests, watching me. I run my hands over her parchment skin, a palimpsest of grey. Her watermelon head is as hot as desire. I tickle her parachute ears. We sit like this on the shadowed plains of my Read More
Higher
by Stella B. James We used to swing here all the time, remember? I’ve forgotten many things with each passing year, but the image of my feet kissing the sky as my stomach fluttered with excitement remains as fresh as if I were fourteen again. “Push me higher!” I’d call out. I can almost feel your hands on my back, Read More
i refuse to believe your lies
by Linda M. Crate so long i have seen myselfthrough the dirty lensof your eyes,but i am not not the villainyou made me out to be;and you are no victor or victimjust an insincere devil untruemasquerading as an angelperhaps you miss heavenbut you’ve fallen—you lamented once you used to knowwhat people wanted,but i think you forgot your soulwas gone along Read More
Ananda
by Robin Ray Ananda, it’s been snowing since you hand-delivered your toasted envelope of admiration, erroneous sentence for inadequate leanings through corporate transfer of isolation laying behind you.Benign guilt in powdery form, hybridizing tulips with marbled sketch books, encourages fogs of sobriety, illusions of masculinity.Upon waking, you’re hard as petrified anger; ambition – baked in a half shell, your spine-cruising Read More
What Is Left
by Amy Barnes I held her in my hand, a childhood Stuckey’s souvenir that began life nestled next to tooth-destroying sweet divinity and pecan logs and shot glasses with state names on them. Each thing chosen to be found during a spontaneous safari hunt through sweets and cheap trinkets. She was sculpted to attract kids stopping for a clean cross Read More
You Were Once a Manta Ray
by Mary Thompson You were once a manta ray breaching the surface of the sea like a gymnast leaping high above its glittering splashes. How we twisted and turned and whirled together like a hypnotic melody. Your impact boomed through the ocean. Now I wish I could hunker down for winter sleep like the hedgehog cocooned in thousands of spines. Read More