Author Archives: Dale

Earthquake by Claire Polders

The steel-eyed businesswoman with whom everyone had been flirting all through her twenties, thirties, and forties, much to her dislike, or so she said, was not noticed now as she crossed the hallway on her heels during the symposium on micro-financing in Amsterdam, was even ignored by the trio of eager security men, and she […]

The Gaseous Vertebrate by Jess Mize

Cazart! … A dreary haze of gray falls across the afternoon of the city. The branches of thick-foliaged trees come to life with the motion of the wind. The surf three-hundred miles away breaks and crashes over rocks and piers and sends banana boats swaying. Rain is in the air along with a fresh, cool […]

The Uprising by Voima Oy

All the cats lay curled in sleep, dreaming a new world. On the savannah, caracals leaped like birds and soared into the sky. Human eyes witnessed this murmuration, but it was dismissed as rumor, nothing more. Even video from mobile phones would have been considered suspect, much like the footage of UFOs in the earlier days. […]

The Moth by Banks Miller

Pale green wings dance in the late afternoon, as the western sky grows rich with the gold and carnelian of approaching sunset, and the shadows of pine trees lengthen. A stream murmurs softly as the moth crosses it and disappears into the woods beyond. the flying luna moth – a soft whisper borne on wings […]

Avoir du Chien By Zebulon Huset

They found her, corset strapped so tight it was cut off, feet bound into balls, vomit crusting her lips. No foul play was the ruling. Zebulon Huset is a teacher, writer and editor in San Diego. He is obsessed with the netherland between flash fiction and prose poetry, as well as the haiku’s ‘murican brother […]

Humite by Linda Wojtowick

Things are changing perhaps. His dreams are that he is a dog, running. He runs all over. He covers the land from the gulf to the larger sea. Though his feet register the spiky roots of bog trees and spines of desert rocks, they are numb, unaffected sensations. He tries panting, just to see. When […]

Flags of Defiance by F.J. Bergmann

After the grape jelly ran out, there was an ascendancy of marmalade, the sultan of the breakfast table, absolute monarch of the buttered bread. Chunks and globs periodically fell from grace on the way to the mouth and crushed into the carpet, snuggling up to dust mice and stray pubic hairs, until sucked into a […]

For Want Of by Kevin Mulligan

Flying jabberwocky monkey pickles blew past the stop sign of endgame. Silent grief dropped from the sky, gluing itself to the parade. Garbage bag floaters shone like bricks melting on a grilled cheese cabbage. Alice drank her milk, thinking Kool Aid posters of dice on a blackboard. Meanwhile, Sherlock sluiced the kielbasa as Murdock fired […]

Auto Autonomy by Mori Glaser

Flying headlit through night terrors, instruments wink at me as I blink through exhaust smoke at wing mirrors and I’m transported into a parallel parking universe with transparent privacy to curse–gossip–cry–sing off key or phone a friend. Dreary toil for years–months–days–hours buys a metal combustion nest mounted on wheels of air with soft-sell interior and […]

Treadmill by Sandra Anfang

The treadmills at the gym look out on Main Street. I’m long past squeamishness at being Exhibit A, a Macy’s window poster child. A couple pushes a stroller past the brick facade. I wait for their child to plant his palms upon the glass. Sometimes I wave to them. When the mother stops, bends over […]

Gossamer Web by Monica Flegg

I wrote a poem about miscarrying my first child in Las Vegas, and an editor emailed me that the lines were too concrete. Should her womb be emptied and refilled with sorrow would she write in pencil? Would she be satisfied to hold a dust mite? Would she grasp at gossamer webs, or would she, […]

Skin by Lucy Palmer

The skin on his face is so pale it’s almost a whisper. So thin, so close to his skull. Sometimes I wish he would eat more so he would seem more real, more solid. Sometimes his skin makes me cry. He doesn’t understand this. He says he doesn’t want to be fat. I say he […]

Untitled by C.M. Keehl

I. Frailty of mortality isn’t what to seek/ isn’t what to wish/ to recount when reality is left scrambling in depths of your clothes trying to predict what you’ll need; if anything at all. II. 6 hours later & finally I was aware your wearable truth left leaking spinal fluid & fragments/ swollen eyes, a […]

Attached by Rebecca Dutsar

Out of all the boys that liked to swarm around you, asking you for coffee, you chose him. He sat in his room and played the most beautiful songs on his guitar thinking that nobody would listen.  He had given you tea before, blankets, even, but this time he held your left hand as you […]

A Cold Spring by Will Cordeiro

Sunrays riddled the snow-mounds, heartless as any gangster. Noon had detonated each vacant crystal. Old sneakers dangled from a tree, their shadows twisted. The river, swollen, dragged off the last dead branches. On its surface a few small clouds (dimpled on its mirror) raced toward the mountains, but the current fled where it always goes: […]