No one swims in Lake Mushroom Cloud, not since the lily pads ate the sun, not since the banks of bones and dirt rolled up their sleeves with a hallelujah fist, and punched a black hole in the face of heaven, a warning to those who grow weary of time, not to order from a … Continue reading
Category Archives: Volume 46
(Almost) Best in the World—Alex Andrew Hughes
His old arms fight to hold three six-packs of cheap beer, waiting to pay behind me. He’s pinned them to his gut, bent his knees, and absorbs the ice-cold blows in silence. With one ear I hear as I walk toward the door, “I was the number 5 heavy-weight boxer in the world!” and … Continue reading
Small and Smaller—Lana Bella
Inside her cupped hands sprouts a small universe. Inside this universe, another one lays smaller. It is not a bird that takes root, nor a mouse, rather a sharp question that presses its lips against moist skin, where ink notes leak into alphabets, incise through tiny beads of perspiration. Words churn this way and that, … Continue reading
Making Music—Tanner Brossart
To her, it was playing a violin, Sweet sinews like stretched strings And the bow ready in her grasp. The cascading melodies she made Part serenade, Part nocturne. To him, it was a ceaseless rhythm. Each drip was a tap on the snare drums And the trails left behind were a cruise Down a … Continue reading
Chicken Curry—Emm Rose Borgerding
What you don’t realize is that when they say “start over” they don’t mean clean slate, to cut your hair name yourself after a famous movie star from the twenties, they mean it as if you were a mountain, and now, you’re starting over from cooling magma and liquid gem. You’ll have to relearn the … Continue reading
Kafka Turned Round—Leslie Philibert
Dead as a fallen log but turned into a human. A gutbag of small pumps, red rivers and spilled salt. Drains, curves and arches in a Roman town. Even stranger than an insect, less noble. Lock the door. Continue reading
Cosmic Grime—Katie Rejsek
I can’t stop imagining What places would be like If they were abandoned No longer here no longer Around Or to see it all Fall deep into the Ground And it was because He would never feel the same Just the way the same As the ground Full of ivy and The dirt … Continue reading
The Color Orange(while I am on drugs)—Katie Rejsek
I am scooping dreamsicle icicles Looking at the orange cup in my right-side-sink Down at the red nightshirt Orange-red. My skin saturated 100 Bursting citrus smack Luminating into birth with a sneeze, I am a matchstick. Patient for a candle, a floor, smoldering house, burning block, engulfed city. Until I am a star snacking … Continue reading
It’s All Tangled up Over There—Martin H. Levinson
If you cross Queens Boulevard a hundred thousand times in a single day you might get hit by a delivery truck containing a veggie pizza and diet coke headed to the Super Cut Salon on Austin Street where Harold the hairdresser theorizes about whether anything can be done in Syria and Iraq where … Continue reading
Who’d do a thing like that?—Lowell Jaeger
She’s wanting me to know how her twin stepsons, after losing a Little League double-header, took baseball bats and busted all the reflectors in every grain truck parked in the lot along the tracks near the Farm Supply at the edge of town. Who’d do a thing like that? I’m waiting for a burger, … Continue reading
Coe Review 