Allison DeDecker Before becoming a parentI never realized how much hurt is causedin trying to prevent it;how guarding against traumacreates its own how watchful eyes can blinkto police searchlights aimingto capture and containinstead of protect and serve how easily a loving touchleft untempered can hardento vice grip over too small fingers,leading hands transmuted to gold […]
Megan Nichols Your faceis the last match in the book guiding methroughthe wreckage lighting the candlesthat encircle us so that I may see how bestto reassembleour home. Megan Nichols writes copy and takes product photographs for businesses local to her. She lives in Arkansas with her son.
Camille Lewis Heartstring (Merriam Webster)noun nheart· string | \ ˈhärt-ˌstriŋ \ Definition of heartstring1: obsolete: a nerve once believed to sustain the heart2: the deepest emotions or affections —usually used in plural That movie really pulls at your heartstrings. If your heartstring isyour string heart, thenpleasedon’tpull.Pluck it with the lightest touch.A priceless harp.Play only one […]
Megan Nichols Praying at the altar of mowed lawnsand bursting hydrangeas, worshippingthe rumble of engines turning over, alongthe narrow row of our dead end street,I drink coffee in the matriarch neighbor’s driveway,her dogs let out like dandelion seeds. My son will be late to learn his hymnsbut early to learn about wheelbarrow rustand WD-40. What […]
Colin James Amid parallel running tracksin the north of England,we workers saw their endingas appurtenances in railway yards.I asked the most forthright,was this a truth then?His answer “I don’t know, Mate.”And I loved him for it. Colin James has a couple of chapbooks of poetry published: Dreams Of The Really Annoying from Writing Knights Press […]
Megan Riggle with her wry grin—a smile that curled the lips even as the rest of her face resisted. She taught us Joan of Arc and that animals have no soul –which you outright rejectedand were sent home. That summer we held a mass burialfor a litter of kittens – ten in all –after they […]
Damien Posterino I hold a catastrophe in my hands.I make a tight cup to stop it struggling out.It builds panic for an army marching,frightened boys fake bravery,their tears parachuting to death.Missiles of burning birthday balloonscelebrate this cult of our making,rivers of blood parading royal pageantswaving their hands to servants dismissed.Crowds on the banks are having […]
Melody Wang the air was still. On his knees,arms grimy up to the elbows,the old man squinted to survey untouched terrain. His steady handwiped off a trickle of sweat, and I watchedas he cut inch-thick tubes of copper for another void-filling project. Hundredsof tiny, bleached half-shells lay scattered inthe dirt — an odd occurrence, origins […]
Daniel J. Flosi i. Sea winds foam sea hymns we disappear like the robin d i f f u s e into fall ii. Hiding in my god complex a geometry of vantage points desperately wiping the lens to find myself In other people’s faces iii. The plum fallen in ash milky-eyed child smashed […]
PS Nolf Aerosol adhesive from the spray gun blows−the polyurethane parts marchingfront and back andfront and back−green and orange hummingbirds in her lungs,nights working the manufacturing line,days doused with drugs and dead dreams.Broken Buddhas line her window sill. Upon graduating from college, the best paid jobs PS Nolf could find were in factories: stitching crotches […]