J. Bradley

How Esmeralda Estrus Got Her Revenge

Canto I – Whereas He Wants To Tap That Ass

In the club, lapping at rum and Coke
like a wolf cub on its mother teat,
I see an ass that makes hands clutch
at the thought of grabbing a cheek.
On the dance floor, she twitches.
Oh no, Ian, it [...]

Eric Burke

Countdown

Hanging from a tree,
noose around his thumb,
her son.
She rushes to save him
(she knows the law:
the thumb = the child)
….again the uncontrollable
discretion of neighbors
must be counted on.

Nicelle Davis

Judas and Jesus as Boys
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Judas, bury me in the sand.
I don’t wanna.
Come on. I’ll let you use my glass shovel.
Leave me alone [...]

Errid Farland

Anna Blue and Elegiac Wind

Anna Blue had been an actress before the orange. She was wild and beautiful and didn’t care what the world called her, except for being here in the Asylum. Odd how that mattered too much. He wished her out, though he loved her [...]

Erin Fitzgerald

Early Decision

We set out at dawn because Melinda said she had one more thing about Albion Tech to show me before we met my parents at the cafeteria for breakfast. My head felt like it had a coat of rubber cement on it. Melinda said forget the kegger last night, [...]

Craig Greenman

Old New Hampshire

1.

I didn’t answer.

But the difference is failure. Consider War and Peace: When Andrey is dying — that’s literature. But in the final chapters, when Pierre and Natasha live happily ever after, it’s schlock. A trite claim — great art is about unhappiness — but [...]

Kevin Griffith

Yearlight Savings Time

When it became clear that the end of the world was coming, and coming soon, the government tried to pull one last trick out of its sleeve: “Yearlight Savings Time.” Although everyone knew it was a way of cheating quantum inevitability, we bought it. What else could [...]

BJ Hollars and Brendan Todt

What We Were

I.

Georgia wanted to cook me dinner. I agreed to it. There are worse things in the world to agree to. She probably hadn’t cooked for anyone in a while. I was happy to humor her.
It was a Thursday night. I asked what I should bring and she said [...]

Alexandra Isacson

Ashes on Paper

It was the morning I caught my best dress and pulled a red silk thread when I heard of your death. My dreams smelled of musty white roses the night before. Your last wife had you cremated, so she could keep you all to herself in [...]

Jason Jordan

Sammy

At first I think it’s the upstairs dog, the one that’s always running around, so I yell “Shut up!” at the ceiling. I’m still half asleep, and don’t know whether or not I’m dreaming. The barking continues. A few minutes later, when I’m convinced it’s not going to let up, [...]

Peter Levine

There Are Two Girls Next To Me Knitting
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There are two girls next to me knitting. We are at a coffee shop/restaurant/bar. One has a dark blue ball of yarn in front of her. The other has a ball of burgundy yarn from which she’s [...]

Sandee Lyles

Therapy

My mother used to vacuum away disappointment
Polish hurt into a lemon shine
Knock those cobwebs down like they had spewed
abuses and blackened eyes
She wore sweet little dresses and petal pink lipstick
Hair swept up like the kitchen floor
We never knew a thing but that she liked things tidy
When I see dirt I [...]

Kuzhali Manickavel

You Can’t And You Don’t

People like to take pictures of him eating. He wears a baseball cap and holds his knife and fork like he is ready for anything. Everyone is touched that he still eats this way. In the pictures, he is usually staring down at plates piled with [...]

Steven J. McDermott

Sliver
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Coming out of the tall grass onto the sand at the top of the beach, she paused. Saw him before he saw her. Not too late to take control, she told herself. Not too late to let the frontal lobes have their victory over that limbic stem [...]

Lylanne Musselman

The Day Truman Capote Died
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The day Truman Capote died
my heart reeled from the headlines
that rivaled a non-fiction novel.
The story was: my friend
entered Head’s Tavern
to purchase a 6-pack to go
when the six foot seven ex-policeman slid his hand
between her legs to cop a feel,
hoping to poke a new [...]

Valerie O'Riordan

The Girl in the Glass

They held the mermaid auditions in the aquarium bathroom, made the girls stick their faces underwater in the sinks and hold their breath. Shona lasted the longest. I heard her say when she surfaced that the room was sparkled with black dots. One [...]

Garrett Socol

The Secret of Washer Number Six

“I always did what I was supposed to do,’ Ravina Varnish explained to the police officer with the presidential name, “and no good came of it. My sister Babette was always bad, and she had the best time.”

Even though the suspect appeared rumpled and [...]

Jared Walls

Ginger Ale
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The first newspaper
I ever read informed me
that I may or may not get cancer
from drinking ginger ale.
This frightens me from
a delicious drink most of my life,
before I realize I’d have to drink enough
ginger ale to drown a planet
of white laboratory mice
in order to die, to watch [...]

Mel Bosworth

Xyrophobic Me
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My beard is a haven for battered children.
They hide in the hairs when things get scary.

My beard once lectured on the dangers of drugs.
It wore a checkered tie and pounded the podium with knotty fists.
The audience sat up in their chairs.
Men fidgeted.
Women sighed.

In the summer, beads [...]

Matthew James Babcock

The Transient Rains of April Thirteenth
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If nothing else, I have this: I once saved a girl’s life. Five years back, before our son was
born, I was walking a street that had grown as familiar as your pulse. January. Twenty below. Chestnut trees, stripped [...]