By Matty Bennett Sheets of ice, everywhere. Or, maybe,future ocean waves lapping against our feet. Winter, even at its cruelest, brings contingence,and, gratefully, my affinity for you. In retrospect, I’m glad I spent three years playing pool in barsinstead of writing poems. The ice, it’s fine. My shoes have no traction. I will pull you downwith me, if I get the chance. Beams of headlights...
THE GIRLS ON A BRIDGE
By Susan Ayres after the painting by Edvard Munch (c. 1904) Childhood is not a meadowof clover and sweet wildflowers.The fir in the backgroundlooms. White pinafore, pinkpier and white sky swirled in bold strokes like frosting on cake.Again and again Munch composedthe scene: three...
The Music of Bernard and Saint
By Michael Sherrin Bernard played the accordion and Saint listened. Like every morning when there was less than a thirty percent chance of rain, Bernard and Saint took two trains to a street near Trafalgar Square. Bernard carried his accordion, his chair, and his bag with what they needed for the day. Bernard unfolded his chair at the corner within view of the station entrance. He removed the dog...
No Sleep
By W. T. Paterson Allison knocked on the front door. Her phone buzzed. Why are you being this way?? the message asked. At work. Bye. She wrote. She could hear the television inside of the small one bedroom apartment, so she tested the cold knob. It spun, unlocked in her palm. Mrs. June’s treatments were getting more severe and sometimes by necessity she had to leave her son Brody alone...
A Spring Egg In Fall
By Ce Ottenweller he saw the egg sitting in the patch of grass near DeeDee’s oak. It was a light green color—came from one of the white chickens. Priss hadn’t seen the egg that morning when she’d walked down to feed the horses, so it had to be pretty fresh. She picked it up and gently pocketed it in the thick oversized rust-brown corduroy coat she wore. It felt warm against her palm. Priss...
Choose The Best Answer
By Linda McMullen 1998 Abby and Katie, in matching nightgowns, display well-brushed baby teeth and beg me to push play. “Are you sure?” I grin. (“They can watch more of the movie if they are helpful getting ready for bed,” Sylvie had said, looping delicate gold hoops into her ears. I watched, cowed by her nonchalance: I couldn’t imagine being a young divorcée. But Sylvie was...
The Royals
By Elizabeth Durham When The Daughter turns 10, Katherine decides to take her to the bookstore and let her pick out anything she wants. The Daughter rarely likes what Katherine buys her these days—books, clothes, food; the teenager that looms ahead will be difficult, Katherine is sure of it—so this just seems easier, to set a precedent of reasonable indulgence in exchange for continued goodwill...
#TwitterJumper
By Justin Bryant Carlton Fitzsimmons @theFitzCartlon 56mHow to kill yourself: a spectacle or quietly? Spectacle #TwitterJumper Carlton Fitzsimmons @theFitzCartlon 56mTall building. Best way to do it. Laura you should have loved me. Not your fault though. Troy’s fault. Stole you from me. #TwitterJumper Carlton Fitzsimmons @theFitzCarlton 56m@Lauraspace you were my...
Watching the Kavanaugh Confirmation with My Daughter
By Katie Sherman My tiniest girl is fierce. Everyone says that about their kids. (I know everyone says that.) But A. is endure-seizures-fierce. She’s roar-and-grit-her-teeth-when-you-tell-her-no-fierce. She’s fall-off-a-brick-wall-to-catch-the-allure-of-a-glittering-ball-and-not-cry-fierce. She’s lesions-on-her-brain-fierce. Lost-most-of-her-speech-fierce. Never-let-anyone-slow-her-down-fierce. A...
Snorkel
By Joe Manus When I was 4 my mother met a man. We were first introduced at an art complex somewhere in the peel of Atlanta’s pulp. He taught a lapidary class there. He apparently was good at shaping rough, visually discarded stones into the flames that the jewel thief moths flocked to. My broken mother probably had a future ambition of him doing the same to her. The day I met him, I filled...