Poetry: “Coming Up Jesus,” by Jeff McRae

Jesus had it going on for a good couple of years,
like Billy Collins—followers who said mmm when
he hit them with a perfect image, event attendees
who snapped their fingers and played bongos,

who caught him up when he took the leap of faith,

Prose: “The Diagnosis,” by Sam Ramos

I never like to give this kind of news, but we ran some tests, and you have cancer. You also have long COVID. And diabetes. And rabies. And tapeworm. And athlete’s foot. And moody spine. You have boredom. You have bleeding. You have really thick hairs on your forearms. You have dropsy. You have hysterical […]

Prose: “Megafauna” by Dan Pinkerton

This was back in the days when all fauna were megafauna. An armadillo and sloth stood around talking to each other. Both were the size of modern-day elephants. “This tough shell gives me some protection against predators, but not nearly enough,” said the armadillo. “I don’t have a tough shell,” sighed the sloth, “but that […]

Prose: “Salmon Head Soup” by Jen Ippensen

He didn’t see me when he arrived at the restaurant, but I recognized him from the picture my mother had shown me. It was her idea, to get back out there, to set me up with her coworker’s nephew. “Girl,” she’d said, “you just need to find the right man.” At our table, while the […]

Prose: “Goat Herd” by Dan Pinkerton

Often I would visit the path that ran through the greenbelt. It was full of harmless people like me, simple outdoor enthusiasts. Allegedly, a stalker once emerged from the trees and menaced young women with a knife, but that was several years ago, ancient history, water under the bridge. The city crew was always nearby, […]

Prose: “Fernly” by Deborah S. Prespare

She pushes her toys to the side and sits cross-legged on the floor. Other dolls and stuffed animals look down at her from the tops of her bed and dresser. Bored with them too, she rests her forehead against the yellow wall. She breathes and forgets where she is. She breathes and forgets her father […]

Prose: “Dissolve” by Alexis Bentz

The 6:45 to Cleveland is, of course, delayed. Rolling her eyes, the woman retrieves her laptop from its sleeve to review the meeting notes for a seventh time. She pauses, pops a God-knows-how-old peppermint fished from the depths of her purse into her mouth, and that’s when she sees the girl: maybe eight years old […]

Poetry: “SO IT’S SPRING” by Jacqueline Hughes Simon

& the robins are back dozens of them in the park but that spring, our first in this house, when I brought the baby back from (no matter what you think) a difficult morning at the park & our cats, who were new to the feral outdoors, had hunted like cougars amongst what I assume were birds unsuspecting […]

Poetry: “PROCESSING” by Amanda Russell

{As in, ongoing / fluxing;As in, computing and hold please and etcetera; As in, wait 600 minutes, and the anchor we never dropped, and how carefully can a person jump out of a plane; As in, whatever you thought you saw, stand over here this time—think again / shift / mend; As in, what didn’t […]

Poetry: “An Orphanage in the Philippines” by Mary Jerzak

you haven’t cried in yearsnow is not the time to starta fire breathing down your throat and your voice falling three stories hand-sized flakes of paint shreds of paper and ashes in piles and in the airyour own empty bed on fire the night outside filled with starsyou turn to watch the flamesin the black […]