by Lori Cramer Melinda decided her living room needed improvement, so she chose Colorado Rockies purple for the wall color and asked an old boyfriend to come over and paint. The vibrant violet hue exceeded her expectations, but something wasn’t quite right. Her old furniture clashed with the new color. She scoured the internet for a black velvet sectional sofa, Read More
Author: Andre
Bindle
by Lannie Stabile I ran away over steel tracks. My bad copper luck flattened as the whistle sang. Loose thoughts filled my pockets & two tight fists kept them company, as I walked midnight to nowhere. There are things I couldn’t leave behind: the park cedar heart I worked so hard for that first fall, latent fingerprints on scrolls of Read More
Song for Iris
by Michael McGill 1. Harder that morning, the sun pressed down, and everyone on the street lay brain-dead, sunbathing like cold corpses. Under fluorescent tubes, I waited for the glow boys, those weird ones who shimmer and glide in minor chords through dark interiors, or who loiter for hours in communal showers. I waited for the jangling of the gaoler’s Read More
Cement
“Phabian, they’ve already finished the foundation! Why won’t you celebrate with me?” “Because it’s unnatural, you can’t convince me otherwise.” “But Phabian, you agreed. You said you wanted to do this with me.” “No, Jennifer, I said that I loved you and that I’d do whatever would make you happy. At no time did I express a desire to build Read More
Sonnetype at dusk at graveside of young woman.
by Elisabeth Horan He who gives Me – taketh the Stone Eats the Loverslips – sways her Bones To magical heights – or was it a depth A lapse in heart pulse – or justified death A Man who touches such as this – hands Never take their leave, I part my Ocean Seas – I forge a New Iron Read More
The Selfishness of Nature
by Toni G. Why is Thunder so full of hate, Lightning so full of spite? Sunlight is the only one who’s truthful, shining a light on his wrong doings, unlike Rain, who is always eager to wash away all evidence of his sins with a quick downpour. Tornadoes are jealous fools harvesting malice to rip apart all in their path, Read More
This Time, It’s a Bomb
by Caleb Echterling At a Greek war council, Odysseus laid out his strategy to end Trojan War 2: Electric Boogaloo. The Greek army would construct a giant wooden steer, and pack it full of explosives. They would roll the steer to the gates of Troy, where the Trojans would see it as a peace offering and take the statue inside Read More
Get Bred
They’ve been wanting to play matchmaker for so long. Now, he has arrived: Phomello, the alpha male that was promised. Eshe can imagine the office hens clucking away. Already they’ve spoken of futures they have no right to compose. “Hey, Eshe, do they really do trunk-tying at pachyderm weddings?” “David’s has a new line of plus-size dresses, did you hear?” Read More
Sometimes You Get the Bull, Sometimes
by Jack B. Bedell There’s got to be a moment when the inmate clown wants the bull to stomp him out, that long second when the dust kicked up from the bull’s charge rises toward heaven and people in the stands hold all the air in their lungs, that hard pause when it’s not a life Read More
Herds
by Anita Goveas I’ve always wanted a trunk. Hands are useful, but wonky lungs mean more time bumside-down means itches in hard-to-reach places. I saw Asian elephants at Chester zoo, Aunty Devika drove us from Stockport in her Mini Cooper. They liked to roll around in the mud, I could see that. But it turned into a two-inhaler day, so Read More