Issue 6

Nonfiction / Lorraine Caputo

Uruguay Sojourns

In the goldening late afternoon sun, screeching green loros fly from tree to eucalyptus tree. A boy rides a white horse bareback down a dirt street.

Poetry / Hassan A. Usman

when bad nights unfurl to form a crosswalk into a day alive with butterflies

all this time we were seated for our own

share of the light now it doesn’t matter

how much furrows are set in our butts

Fiction / Meredith Craig

The Twilight Ride of Sundeep Johar

“Do you want to die?” Sundeep’s brother asks.

I nod.

Poetry / Lennie Hay

Late Afflictions

To be old in the time of disease is to be angry

for the crushed wren on the sidewalk; for the resurrection

Nonfiction / Christi R. Suzanne

Rusty Pipes

Our synapses start firing as we form and recollect anecdotes or events that have impacted us throughout our lives. We lose and regrow important brain connections that may lead to a forgotten smile or worse.

Poetry / Cameron Morse

Exoskeleton

As frail as I am

with my bandaged

head my

stumbling abnormality

Fiction / Stephanie King

Non-Paternity Event

He was on emergency leave when it happened, home in time for his mother to enter hospice, greeted at the airport by volunteers waving little American flags. I was “home for Christmas,” my meager belongings stored in a CubeSmart storage unit while I figured out my next move.

Poetry / Triston Dabney

We Don’t Often Talk About Fathers

I always questioned who my father was

before the hair decided

to settle between his chest,

Fiction / Karol Lagodzki

What One Needs in the Wilderness

No heavy machinery could tame the sandy unpaved road outside Babcia’s Augustów house. A grunting tractor pulling a drum came through every couple of months, but soon all who walked the road could feel its sting in their calves again.

Poetry / Nnadi Samuel

Ars Poetica

slimy & joy-wet. you're night's work of art, hatched from nothing

into the belly of a jaw—softening the hard ground of language.

Fiction / Abigail Oswald

The Boy in the TV

The boy in the TV has golden streaks like honey in his hair and two blue diamonds for eyes, face open like a window streaming sunlight. Watch as his brows furrow over inscrutable hazel orbs, jet black hair slicked smooth and reflecting pale moonlight.

Poetry / Shitta Faruq Adémólá

A Physiotherapy with A Bird

First assignment: Underline the words that describe you.

My father has a hunchback for beauty.

Gunshot in Borno— girls do not know how to smile.

Nonfiction / Linda Nemec Foster

A Daughter Dreams of Her Mother’s Death

My dream begins like a fairy tale.

Wild wolves are in the house—not tame

Fiction / Phebe Jewell

Gynecology

“Got a boyfriend?” The red-faced doctor with big hands asks, leaning over Cindy’s pubes.

“Kind of.” Cindy blushes.

Poetry / Katey Linskey

“I think sometimes I am not woman, but…”

incubator, talking point, someone’s mother,

sister, daughter, girlfriend—at least I could be.

Sometimes the closet, and by that, I mean the hanger.

Nonfiction / Stephen Haines

The Green Light

To mix a cocktail is to tell a story. Each bottle you pour from has a history, some mundane and some grandiose.

Poetry / Marc Alan Di Martino

Barbershop

As the barber snipped and combed,

lathered and groomed, I lapsed