Back to the basics had a certain derogatory appeal. I wanted it certified in wallpaper paste, spelled out on a duotone horizon of a penny postcard. But the Boss had a problem with your application. You didn’t use authentic, black India ink; and it ran across the page like a bandwidth across the curve of […]
Category Archives: Issue 19
The Lost Boys by Diane Henningfeld
November, and there they are, on the front page of the Daily Telegram, the three boys whose father didn’t bring them home for Thanksgiving. The newspaper ages their pictures each year and sometimes it feels like the boys are children of far away friends who send us photos each Christmas. We watch the boys grow, […]
The Design of Bridges by Christine Taylor
I’m driving on a narrow winding bridge impossibly suspended over the ocean. The car is too wide for the lane, the door scrapes the concrete crash barrier when I move to make room for oncoming traffic. Sparks fly. Soon it’s just me on the road, tumbling uphill. It’s like being strapped in a roller coaster, […]
Weight of a Map by Biman Roy
Chekov studied maps how palmists study hands. He would look at starred cities with scars of quakes and molten mountains fabricated into mansions. He traced streets that turned into curvy lines running up into sky and touched the royal bluish patch of the sea at the right uppermost corner. Slowly the characters emerged. First, a […]
I Am Three by Christina Scott
“I was raped when I was six.” She keeps driving. She will never talk about it again. “I was pulled up the stairs by my hair when my mother was drunk and high.” I picture blood seeping into her light brown hair. I eat a french fry. “Then she beat your uncle with a crowbar.” […]
Soliloquy by Sheila Packa
I. My grandmother poured a shot of brandy into her coffee. Puna, she called it. She kept the liquor bottle in the kitchen cabinet, top shelf. Years later, I learned puna meant red. Years later, I learned the word for river, the kind that one can’t step into twice. A photo in black & white: […]
2,9418 by Rim Afana
Holes in his fingers. From trimming 1,400 hot plastic bottles (for $13 a day). Holes in diaries. Curated voids at times shield y’all (from elves or selves). Holes in my teapot. Diced ginger burning my lips (that lipless visage once subdued me). Holes in bark leaves. Caterpillars break their fast at dusk (bask in shrill […]
To My American Friend by Maree Reedman
No offence, I couldn’t live in the US. The butter depresses me. It’s so pale. They served Lurpak when I was in San Francisco, which is over here too. I hate it. Danish. What is going on with the cows in America? Are they mad? Should I send you some Australian butter? Western Star is […]
Rocket Surgery by Tom Fugalli
You’ll need a light source of course, but it must be bioluminescent: a jar of fireflies or some deep-sea nightmare fish in a saltwater tank. You should hold the surgical instruments with your feet. Wearing a mask is frowned upon. Don’t think of that Elton John song. Unlike what you’ve seen in the movies, you […]
Slave Ship by Herbert Plummer
My buddy says she’s easy so I say fine, a date. We go to this little spot in the North End, some joint called the Equal Exchange Cafe on Causeway, then hop on the T to the Museum of Fine Arts, joking & poking at each other, working my charm, trying to find some common […]
The bone music maker by Claudia Serea
The bone music maker is a bootlegger of jazz and rock and roll. His name is Sasha and he lives on Resurrection Street. Each week, he looks for X-rays in the hospital dumpsters and takes them home to turn them into records. The hospitals are full of sick people. The dumpsters overflow with X-rays. And […]
Dream ending on a verb by Merridawn Duckler
In my dream, we are rich and shop without price tags. You toss me nice things while strolling the Chanel Boutique. We shop assiduously around a woman lying naked on a raised platform. Waiting for a massage? Or just too rich to even bother with clothes anymore? I struggle into a huge sweater and question […]
I Imagine Myself in Australia by Sara Backer
I sweat in a crowded bar with lots of chairs—chairs to sit on, chairs to stand on, stunt chairs to throw against plywood walls. I’m in my thirties again, single, in tight indigo jeans and a white tank top. My hair thick again—a ponytail of auburn frizz. Australian cowboys arrive in jumbo pickups with roof […]
You arrive in the city by Sam Payne
bare shoulders in a turquoise dress, walking in the shadows of dusty tower blocks past a hair salon, a bank, an Indian takeaway. You pause outside a pub & scratch away the midge biting at your leg. From the dim light within you hear voices echoing, glasses clinking & the soft static at the edge […]
Questions Resulting from an Exchange of the Hungry Caterpillar by Sara Mann
Why do I have four words for your maduro, but only one for your four slices? I give you mature for a child, seasoned for a professional, aged for a cheese, ripe for a fruit—and you give me trozo for a part of a whole, but rebanada if it’s thin, rodaja if it’s round, and […]
Ants by Brad Rose
Tiny feet scurry toward the tunnels of home. Like motorists crying and driving. The sky is asleep, the day hourless. If they could speak, I’m sure they would ask, “Where are all the bachelorettes?” but they’re carrying little boulders in their jaws, the way a lion carries an impala by its broken neck. I wish […]
On the Isle of Unst by F. John Sharp
Should you care to look, you may one day find me on the isle of Unst, near Haroldswick and Uyeasound, and a fair walk from Muckle Flagga. I may be sitting on a stool on the shore, waiting for Aurora lights, my woolen sweater and cap as defense against bitter winds tossed shore-ward off the […]
Paper Atmosphere by Brooke Larson
This isn’t a story. This is stage direction. The circus has come to town. The circus has never left. You are seized by a sense of running away to the circus. Of having always already arrived. You find yourself here. You are seized by the need for the audience to understand. We are each a […]