Conversationalists

by Visar Flour-sacks waving like flagson the windows in the afternoons. The people in this town sit by theirwindows, breathing on anything thatpasses. They sit on dead Volvos bearingBluetooth stereos on their shoulders,where the words are streaming, never ending. The caves in our skullshave become like whistles, to crack back sibilants at the world.Our tongues have ghosts in them, our Read More

Searching for Virginia

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

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

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