Poetry: “Chum,” by Susan Shea

He puts himself
at the head
of the long table

in front of the
killer whale-sized

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 […]

Poetry: “Prison Planet,” by Zack Carson

All night (when isn’t it night?) the flat fields sleep unsound,
the megacities spit and thrum with their overdrive generators,
babies shawled in naked terror howl for 24-hour shifts in test chambers.
Earth is round the way a cattle prod is round.

Electricity churns and spits, sprinting through Hell World, block after block.

Poetry: “Periodic,” by Rebecca Myers

His final breaths
served as a reminder
that dying had been kept
from me all these years: Yes,
I wept, but more
because of the ecstatic
unbraiding that accompanied
the irregular pattern
of rapid gasps and
apnea

Fiction: “Good Taste” by Dana Schwartz

In the bedroom of a small apartment outside Kielce in Poland, a man named Gustaw Smolak had a heart attack just as his wife left to get groceries in their olive green Camaro. The Smolak family lived on the second floor of a building that had been redecorated so many times by its tenants over […]

Fiction: “Into the Horizon” by Kacy Cunningham

Gam never cuddled or cooed. She didn’t linger or inquire or speak of love. She had suffered the loss of her husband over two decades ago and, though they hadn’t laughed often, when they did, it was deep and hearty. Gam smothered bread with butter and piled ham high between the white, buttery slices, serving […]

Poetry: “Of the Storm (Sleepless Eye)” by Adele Wegner

Adele Wegner was born in Youngstown, Ohio and lives in Chicago. She is a writer and artist and works in the field of psychology and mental health. Her poems have been published in Columbia Poetry Review and Burningword.

Poetry: “Ward (Ollie/Ali in the Mirror)” by Adele Wegner

Ward (Ollie/Ali in the Mirror) The doctors are filling out paperwork. Their notes, translations of our original words, are mangled into the computer system. And later extracted, pulled from an ear onto the torn red sofa, spluttering. Someone said, “You are not authorized to make these changes.” Behind closed doors. Coordinates align—and click—beginning to uncoil […]

Poetry: “Terra Firma” by Jessie Li

Terra Firma For my grandmother, who could no longer speak, I made this prayer: for the voice inside her to beat like the earth, like the tulips outside her window, swelling with life. For her to call me once more to water the young bulbs together. Instead, my grandmother curled into herself, wanting nothing but […]