by Toni G. It’s 6:57 Sunday morning and the birds are chirping outside my bedroom window ceaselessly. Silencio por favor, I yell with the worst Spanish accent ever, hoping that words in a language more beautiful than English will sway them to my will. It doesn’t work, and I blame my junior high school Spanish teacher for not molding me Read More
Author: Andre
Melodental
by Édgar Omar Avilés (translated by Toshiya Kamei) A man was cleaning his mouth. That morning he was brushing his teeth with such mastery that he began to create sublime music. All of a sudden the doors and windows of his house broke: he realized right away that he stood in front of three taxmen, seven extraterrestrials, two gods, a Read More
Exist
Dear Luke, Sunset turned the cove into gold this evening, and I thought of you. I know you must hate me. And I don’t mean to open old wounds by writing. But stepping out the door, my heart exclaimed, “I wish Luke were here to see this!” Yet, even as longing filled me, I remembered your voice, telling me the Read More
An Old Superstition
by Lannie Stabile When I cross a cemetery, I grip my breath like a rosary. I watch the tombstones blur,the iron fence galloping along. I finger the beads of my lungs until my chest pops. I try desperately to exorcise you. But the heart is weak and wispy. I release the imprisoned mistand breathe your ghost in again, as I Read More
elephants never pity
by Jennifer Wilson elephants never feel like this lost and looking for the bones of their mothers, extant flesh hooding their eyes with tears while their body rots beneath them O give me sleep, lumbering and heavy with a grey vastness to eclipse the universe give me bones cold enough to feel the skin I have left, to keep it Read More
Barren—not of Words
by Elisabeth Horan I sit upon my little clutch It’s three – five – ten at The most Speckled little curds of me Within them— A glow of life to be A bulb / a flint A match / a yolk A shell of calcium Encasing the heart It’s the best thing I’ve ever made No sperm encroached No fertilization Read More
The day begins again
by Megha Sood Silence rests on the edge of my hand a slight movement and it breaks the facade of stillness; of eternity, of longevity and more. my body lies supine within this tall grass scorched by the sun whitened by the heat emptiness seeps slowly making a long trail as that of the tears on my cheeks everything around Read More
Sleep and Jelly Beans
by Toni G. My boyfriend pops sleeping pills as if they’re jelly beans, sugar-coated candy with the only sinister intention being the rotting away of his teeth. I find him curled up on the floor in the bathroom most nights. Other times, he’s laid out in the laundry room or hallway. Once I found him on the elevator floor. He Read More
Susceptible
by Kristin Garth The doctor tells you when she’s five, first bout pneumonia, barely survived, that she is susceptible — protectable without exposure to much humanity. Kids are carriers, fatalities to be avoided to stay alive. Acres, pines, moths, servants, swans, beehives, she thrives, thin trees, cerebral climbs 60 feet to sunshine illuminating friends, odd names revealed when she, pretend, Read More
Forswear
“No food during the day at all?” asked Phurnell. “Nah, dude,” replied Malik. “We eat as a family to prepare for the day. And then no food till sundown when we break fast as a family.” “And you got through 30 days of that?” “Yeah, 30 days plus a half day waiting for the new moon.” “That’s hard,” mused Phurnell. Read More