Poetry: “On Remembering the Polished Jewel in My Pocket,” by Frank LaRussa

I.
In the fall morning sky, high above the white glaze
of the brown mountain range, a raven would fly.
She’d flutter then plunge through the dawn light and fog
over fields filled with songs of the killdeer and dove –

Prose: “The Glimmering Woods,” by Richard Jacobs

One unseasonably warm Saturday in late January Val’s phone rang. He picked up the receiver and said an unsuspecting “Hello.” Carrie said, simply, “Hi.” He’d thought she had damned him by now for his silence, his necessary relinquishment. “How are you?” she asked. “Uh . . . well, I think.” He smelled roses, the scent […]

Poetry: “Strawberry Shortcake Footholds on Luggage,” by Christopher Barnes

Bustling check-in desk, suited men. Orderly queue –
duty free sake. Vexed boy humpfed away.
Eleventh hour tannoy inspirits discomfort. She lays
Japanese Red Army’s blasting cap. Oyster-white
peripheries shock to black

Prose: “Djinns of the River,” by Jordan Gabriel

I came to Imlil to return to myself, to put an end to the nervous estrangement that had taken hold of me in the windless dust of Marrakech. That which cannot be seen nor grasped, and thus cannot be proven, is there nonetheless. I swear it. It’s as if the whole city sucks and exsufflates […]

Poetry: “Chum,” by Susan Shea

He puts himself
at the head
of the long table

in front of the
killer whale-sized

Prose: “The Storm,” by Grant Gaugash

The old man stood at the edge of the park, the curb meeting the grass behind him, and ran a hand through his graying hair. The place was destroyed. Trees lay toppled onto their sides, dirtied roots bared. Clumps of grass protruded from the earth, pivoted unnaturally towards the sky. Leaves and sawdust and acorns […]

Poetry: “Forests sleep through storms,” by Jay Grummel

They say the throat is scornful
holding onto soft, slow blurs of wavering crows
with wings of mud and beaks cool as rock, weighting
they lust. Will it bruise you, when nothing is left moral?
In these unknown times, the lilacs sang

Prose: “Modern Love,” by James O’Meara

She wanted thumbtacked 3 x 5s on her walls, plush carpets, and plenty of space. Long nights and short days, love that could drive her crazy if she let it. Soft whispers in the half-light of morning, tangled up in the sheets of a twin-sized bed, iced coffee and an omelet, shared independence. She wore […]

Poetry: “Ghosts Come,” by Jane Wiseman

In the blackout storm, our wings
shear through ravages of cloud
seen only in flashes. Compassing
our trackway toward you, we wheel
into dirty weather.

Prose: “something that knows it’s dead,” by Isabel Yacura

Her body is rotting. Allison knows this, just as she knows the four chambers of the heart—two atria, two ventricles—and how to stitch a simple continuous suture. When she slices open the cadaver, y-shape, petals of flesh blooming underneath her fingers, her advisor praises her steady hands. Beneath her mask, Allison smiles. There was a […]