Summer Block

Sonnet for the Mother Mary
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I remember the low moan of cattle,
Their feet stirring the hay to musty gold,
And the sound of a rolling boulder
Like distant nursery thunder.

As a child I heard sobbing in the tents:
Our bodies took the vow of coming pain.
In Bethlehem, my womb was forever
Praying, [...]

Mark Budman

The Amazing Adventures of Macro-Microbe

Macro-Microbe parked his car and proceeded on foot, which was a misnomer because he had no feet. Typical for Manhattan, no one gave him a second glance except for a homeless woman who tried to sell him hand-sanitizer. Macro-Microbe locomoted himself inside the building of NextDrug [...]

Kevin Brown

Why Don’t You Slide?

Why don’t you kids dance? He decided to say, and then he said it. “Why don’t you dance?”

—Raymond Carver
“Why Don’t You Dance?”

On the front doorsteps, he takes another shot of Scotch and looks at the bed of flowers in his living room floor. The [...]

John Farmer

Poetry Is

Poetry is what you find in the dirt in the corner,
overhear on the bus, God in the details, the only way
to get from here to there. — Elizabeth Alexander

Poetry is also the dust
under the couch, the crumbs
swept beneath the rug, the Devil in the details,
the lion tamed and the [...]

Heather Fowler

Let Us Pretend

For just one moment the lovers are too startled to speak. He has begun his periodic overture towards her heart and body, with the signals she has grown accustomed to: the warm touching of her palms, his arm thrown around her shoulder, his delicate and gentle kiss [...]

Katherine Grosjean

Them Bones
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I’m telling you, he knew. From the moment he first saw me Marty knew I was crazy for it, and then used it to get me to go out with him. Doris, he said, let’s you and I play mah jongg. Teach me, he said. I [...]

Caitlin Johnson

There are Women at the Shipyard

Flocks of blouses scream
for you to finger their hems,
fumble their buttons.
Open them while you,
you rush to fill them
with your wide face,
your cotton-seed heart.
You love the wind
for sending skirts
skyward, blessed with
peeking panties.
You send them your eyes.
Wait for them to beckon:

How about it, big boy,
you who smells [...]

Tim Jones-Yelvington

Fugitives
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Most nights, Calvin and I lie in bed and watch TV. Calvin’s stomach is a pillow, but I don’t mind. Calvin flips the channels. With each channel flipped, sound explodes. “Will you stop?” I say. “You’re making me epileptic.” Calvin grabs my cock and says, “Do I [...]

Sarah Layden

The Rest of Your Life
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In an hour, you’re scheduled to learn about the rest of your life.

It’s all mapped out: a twenty-minute drive north through the winter sleet. A left turn at the looming hospital building. Before entering, you refresh your lipstick in the parking lot. This [...]

Laura LeHew

In a Snow—Fall

She falls off some scaffolding sparring
hexagons open a tectonic drift she
listens too attentively and
the answer is an echo.

Stars fall on her head she says she’s
a falsehood all her life
loquacious—her internal
structure stands for no-one.

Maybe she is all alone in
her collective. A series of pauses
even from miles away finds her
falling [...]

Sara Faye Lieber

“Incendiary, PA”

The name Centralia comes from the Latin root centralis, the meaning of which is: in the middle, at the center of things. There are actually thirteen Centralias, twelve in the United States, and one in Canada. There are fourteen Centralias if you count the largely unpopulated region of Central [...]

Cortney McLellan

Sweet, Juicy Pepper
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She slices into a pepper, dull knife popping through thick, red skin.

One baby tugs her nightgown, smearing applesauce. Another crashes a talking racecar into her shoe. Remove batteries. Remove applesauce. Remove tethers.

The skin separates, sprays pepper-mist over her hands and chin. She inserts a finger [...]

Laura Marello

In One Enormous Bed Like Children
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After he made love to his wife, Pearse lay on his back and waited until he could hear her steady breathing. When he was sure she was asleep he checked the time. The illuminated numbers on the digital clock glowed [...]

Daniel Pinkerton

ORGAN STAMPEDE

My organs had grown accustomed to ignoring one another, each with his own duties, et cetera, but one day the pancreas announced his intent to visit the outside world. Here I feel confined, he said. Spleen is cramping my style. His voice carried in such a [...]

Emily Rosko

[The juggler casteth a mist to work the closer]

Left the game to run riot, a further school
of abuse, of sorts. Trumpery to the finest,
a go-for-broke mass psychology, a clammy

handshake put to the [...]

Kowshik Sarangan

ON SUBMITTING PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED WORK AND LAUGHING ALL THE WAY TO THE FOODBANK

Emilie Jacobs was an unconscionable fucktard. “Literary journals,” she said, winking at me, “surely have a vested (if not semantic) interest in demanding so-called First North American Rights. It’s their prerogative we question. Here, as [...]

Shappy Seasholtz

Zombie Stand-Up

Thank you! Thank you!
What a wonderful audience!

There am nothing more beautiful than
the sound of rotting flesh slapping together!

That’s what she said!

Me kidding, me kidding!
Me eat own penis long time ago—

Cuz that’s where’s men’s [...]

Audri Sousa

2:30

you can draw us a bath
with the newest crayon colour
by unseen alchemy
we can leave our polka dots
behind in the bath
we will wave goodbye
as they swirl down nether drains
to populate empires
of sewer fish

i need caffeine in the morning
and adderall at night
and i am going to sleep
on a giant piece of paper
and [...]

Robert Swartwood

The Bat

Mom let it in by accident. She opened the backdoor to take out the garbage and in it came, a black flapping blur. I was sitting at the kitchen table doing my homework. When I saw it I screamed. Mom, startled, turned back and saw the black flapping blur. [...]