Poetry: “Thornton Dial and Flesh-Eating Beatles” by Carrie Meadows

Thornton Dial & Flesh-Eating Beetles Two bobcats, a deer, a cow’s head, a Labrador retriever, all in a heavy-duty lawn & leaf bag. When the bones’ve been cleaned by beetles, weight and gravity disappear. If pheromones spread to marrow, then ladybugs will come here this winter to sleep and die, leaving trails of yellow blood […]

Poetry: “Peruvianus” by Jacob Riyeff

Peruvianus Making love to February air; staring out at neon lights freezing. Droning into a rising sun and drinking soma in the mind— this beatific brace stunting every thought and settles simply with a longing laugh. Jacob Riyeff currently studies medieval literature at the University of Notre Dame. When not spending time with his family, […]

Poetry: “This Way to the Tower” by Kristine Ong Muslim

This Way to the Tower Your faulty timekeeping device has finally brought you here. How the city teems with bodies, the bodies of those who dismembered their mute citizens. What remains is the taut spirit of morning, its dew-stricken air made denser by swirling debris— and you now understand that not everything is allowed to […]

Poetry: “Fireside Chat” by John F. Buckley and Martin Ott

Fireside Chat The fireplace has been replaced by a TV cracked open like a dinosaur egg, the blue flame flickering inside the screen. President Smunchner, half-ruined face still swoonworthy from the right, patiently waits for the drums to subside, for children to return to parents’ sides. The purple mountains proudly wear their scars and even […]

From the Archives: “Grown” by Janelle Adsit

we choose familiar places for goodbye places with trees, twigs hardly fastened, and geese droppings like paste beneath us which we avoid so as not to stay or take the place with us. the bed of water holds the green—only green—so not even our reflections can remind us. Originally published in Winter 2009.

From the Archives: “The Night Keeps” by Bryce Thornburg

Cool and leaves Find like parts To line the yard Each tree rather Unclung to A departure The fenced-in Quality throws me

From the Archives: “Black Cat” by C. L. O’Dell

I grabbed film to catch it, black cat in a grazing field, stalking birds, a buoy in an ocean, a miserable dis- coloration piled loose in a stairwell of thought, un- photographable in its place. Originally published in Spring 2008.

From the Archives: “A Mom Reads Kipling” by Elizabeth Bastos

I am the many-armed goddess of the market-going and market-coming-back-from, a sacred balloon tied to each child’s wrist. Death of shrimp. In the middle of the night, you better believe I am the mongoose. Beside me lies the lump of Man, unconscious, who does not hear (and maybe could never hear) the stirrings of Nag, […]

Poetry: “Prayer” by Charles Rammelkamp

Prayer I don’t believe in God, but when I return home from work, the streets deserted, the sun a fond memory, I always take the shortcut, from the train station, down the dark narrow alley where rats scuttle by piles of garbage, their red eyes glowing like matchheads, the sky a tiny slice between tall […]

Poetry: “Unified Field Theory” by Ted Jean

Unified Field Theory At the high point of Territorial Road just east of Tangent, Paul pulls over, decants some citrus-flavored vodka from a plastic pint in a paper bag to an empty fast-food coffee cup, takes a belt and a deep breath, and watches as the winter sun alights along the scrubby lea beneath Pete’s […]