January 2025

Issue 91

January 2025

Issue 91

Poetry


Featured image for ““Disappearing Home,” “Shopping With My Mother,” and “A Little Fiction””

Molly Seale

“Disappearing Home,” “Shopping With My Mother,” and “A Little Fiction”

We scooped up the baby,
ramrodded the four year old,
imprisoned the two gray tabbies,
locked them all in the ‘77
white LTD with the green vinyl interior
left to me by my mother upon her death.
Poetry
Featured image for ““Polyglotony,” “Quadrophonic,” and “Photogenia””

Steve Biersdorf

“Polyglotony,” “Quadrophonic,” and “Photogenia”

Disrupting the murmuring stillness,
the nasally whine of a two-stroke motor,
hedge trimmers whipsawing

weeds framing sidewalk, infiltrating
Poetry
Featured image for ““Starting from the Middle,” “Heap of a Human,” and “First Love After””

Naomi Anne Goldner

“Starting from the Middle,” “Heap of a Human,” and “First Love After”

Life came out of me
a gush of red
Moon-pale I waited those eternal
stretched seconds
for my
arms to be filled
with you.
Poetry
Featured image for ““A Quiet Black Wedding,” “The Broken must find the Broken ,” and “So Many Lengths of Time””

Alan Hill

“A Quiet Black Wedding,” “The Broken must find the Broken ,” and “So Many Lengths of Time”

These arguments, the silences, were all a slow release

a practice run to make the death of us
this love we had, a little easier to finish.

We have come apart, the skin of us slide

to be faceless, naked, the bones of us stand free
Poetry
Featured image for ““First Man,” “Deal With It,” and “The Socks””

Katherine Orfinger

“First Man,” “Deal With It,” and “The Socks”

Empty as the space
on the back of my neck

where the phantom of your
hand rests just

outside the confines of
my comfortable reach
Poetry
Featured image for ““Nocturne,” “Flint Ridge Overlooking the Klamath River,” and “Aubade for Lisa””

Nick Vasquez

“Nocturne,” “Flint Ridge Overlooking the Klamath River,” and “Aubade for Lisa”

The night is a black dress

draped over the arms of a couch, she whispers
stars plucked like cherry blossoms.
A smokey hush fills the room
Poetry
Featured image for ““Dissolution of My Father,” “My Mother’s Faith,” and “Crying: Process””

Jesse Darnay

“Dissolution of My Father,” “My Mother’s Faith,” and “Crying: Process”

You inhabit me; you narrow to flanks.
Your spineless nerves sear my ventricles.
The creative will will snap your cheekbone—
hush, soil, remains.
Look at the blank between us
squeezing my shoulders.
Poetry
Featured image for ““the wish,” “imperatives at the lake,” and “sister song””

Claire Coenen

“the wish,” “imperatives at the lake,” and “sister song”

after all this busying of body, resisting rest
like a toddler hurling her blanket through the night,
after all these efforts manifesting goals, dreading
rejection, willing perfection like a cheerleader
Poetry
Featured image for ““A Duplex Only Turns 43 Twice,” “Accidentally Down and Out in Dublin,” “Here and There on a Triple-Helical Journey to the Islands and Highlands of Scotland””

Jake Sheff

“A Duplex Only Turns 43 Twice,” “Accidentally Down and Out in Dublin,” “Here and There on a Triple-Helical Journey to the Islands and Highlands of Scotland”

More insatiable than the desire to hoard,
Your fans say death’s a foreign coincidence.

They also say a forgotten coin’s never
Spent, but its odyssey costs us a day.

In 42, you slid like theodicy.
In Get on Up, you put an omen’s plaything
Poetry
Featured image for ““Disappearing Home,” “Shopping With My Mother,” and “A Little Fiction””

Molly Seale

“Disappearing Home,” “Shopping With My Mother,” and “A Little Fiction”

We scooped up the baby,
ramrodded the four year old,
imprisoned the two gray tabbies,
locked them all in the ‘77
white LTD with the green vinyl interior
left to me by my mother upon her death.
Poetry
Featured image for ““Polyglotony,” “Quadrophonic,” and “Photogenia””

Steve Biersdorf

“Polyglotony,” “Quadrophonic,” and “Photogenia”

Disrupting the murmuring stillness,
the nasally whine of a two-stroke motor,
hedge trimmers whipsawing

weeds framing sidewalk, infiltrating
Poetry
Featured image for ““Starting from the Middle,” “Heap of a Human,” and “First Love After””

Naomi Anne Goldner

“Starting from the Middle,” “Heap of a Human,” and “First Love After”

Life came out of me
a gush of red
Moon-pale I waited those eternal
stretched seconds
for my
arms to be filled
with you.
Poetry
Featured image for ““A Quiet Black Wedding,” “The Broken must find the Broken ,” and “So Many Lengths of Time””

Alan Hill

“A Quiet Black Wedding,” “The Broken must find the Broken ,” and “So Many Lengths of Time”

These arguments, the silences, were all a slow release

a practice run to make the death of us
this love we had, a little easier to finish.

We have come apart, the skin of us slide

to be faceless, naked, the bones of us stand free
Poetry
Featured image for ““First Man,” “Deal With It,” and “The Socks””

Katherine Orfinger

“First Man,” “Deal With It,” and “The Socks”

Empty as the space
on the back of my neck

where the phantom of your
hand rests just

outside the confines of
my comfortable reach
Poetry
Featured image for ““Nocturne,” “Flint Ridge Overlooking the Klamath River,” and “Aubade for Lisa””

Nick Vasquez

“Nocturne,” “Flint Ridge Overlooking the Klamath River,” and “Aubade for Lisa”

The night is a black dress

draped over the arms of a couch, she whispers
stars plucked like cherry blossoms.
A smokey hush fills the room
Poetry
Featured image for ““Dissolution of My Father,” “My Mother’s Faith,” and “Crying: Process””

Jesse Darnay

“Dissolution of My Father,” “My Mother’s Faith,” and “Crying: Process”

You inhabit me; you narrow to flanks.
Your spineless nerves sear my ventricles.
The creative will will snap your cheekbone—
hush, soil, remains.
Look at the blank between us
squeezing my shoulders.
Poetry
Featured image for ““the wish,” “imperatives at the lake,” and “sister song””

Claire Coenen

“the wish,” “imperatives at the lake,” and “sister song”

after all this busying of body, resisting rest
like a toddler hurling her blanket through the night,
after all these efforts manifesting goals, dreading
rejection, willing perfection like a cheerleader
Poetry
Featured image for ““A Duplex Only Turns 43 Twice,” “Accidentally Down and Out in Dublin,” “Here and There on a Triple-Helical Journey to the Islands and Highlands of Scotland””

Jake Sheff

“A Duplex Only Turns 43 Twice,” “Accidentally Down and Out in Dublin,” “Here and There on a Triple-Helical Journey to the Islands and Highlands of Scotland”

More insatiable than the desire to hoard,
Your fans say death’s a foreign coincidence.

They also say a forgotten coin’s never
Spent, but its odyssey costs us a day.

In 42, you slid like theodicy.
In Get on Up, you put an omen’s plaything
Poetry

Poetry


Featured image for ““Disappearing Home,” “Shopping With My Mother,” and “A Little Fiction””

Molly Seale

“Disappearing Home,” “Shopping With My Mother,” and “A Little Fiction”

We scooped up the baby,
ramrodded the four year old,
imprisoned the two gray tabbies,
locked them all in the ‘77
white LTD with the green vinyl interior
left to me by my mother upon her death.
Poetry
Featured image for ““Polyglotony,” “Quadrophonic,” and “Photogenia””

Steve Biersdorf

“Polyglotony,” “Quadrophonic,” and “Photogenia”

Disrupting the murmuring stillness,
the nasally whine of a two-stroke motor,
hedge trimmers whipsawing

weeds framing sidewalk, infiltrating
Poetry
Featured image for ““Starting from the Middle,” “Heap of a Human,” and “First Love After””

Naomi Anne Goldner

“Starting from the Middle,” “Heap of a Human,” and “First Love After”

Life came out of me
a gush of red
Moon-pale I waited those eternal
stretched seconds
for my
arms to be filled
with you.
Poetry
Featured image for ““A Quiet Black Wedding,” “The Broken must find the Broken ,” and “So Many Lengths of Time””

Alan Hill

“A Quiet Black Wedding,” “The Broken must find the Broken ,” and “So Many Lengths of Time”

These arguments, the silences, were all a slow release

a practice run to make the death of us
this love we had, a little easier to finish.

We have come apart, the skin of us slide

to be faceless, naked, the bones of us stand free
Poetry
Featured image for ““First Man,” “Deal With It,” and “The Socks””

Katherine Orfinger

“First Man,” “Deal With It,” and “The Socks”

Empty as the space
on the back of my neck

where the phantom of your
hand rests just

outside the confines of
my comfortable reach
Poetry
Featured image for ““Nocturne,” “Flint Ridge Overlooking the Klamath River,” and “Aubade for Lisa””

Nick Vasquez

“Nocturne,” “Flint Ridge Overlooking the Klamath River,” and “Aubade for Lisa”

The night is a black dress

draped over the arms of a couch, she whispers
stars plucked like cherry blossoms.
A smokey hush fills the room
Poetry
Featured image for ““Dissolution of My Father,” “My Mother’s Faith,” and “Crying: Process””

Jesse Darnay

“Dissolution of My Father,” “My Mother’s Faith,” and “Crying: Process”

You inhabit me; you narrow to flanks.
Your spineless nerves sear my ventricles.
The creative will will snap your cheekbone—
hush, soil, remains.
Look at the blank between us
squeezing my shoulders.
Poetry
Featured image for ““the wish,” “imperatives at the lake,” and “sister song””

Claire Coenen

“the wish,” “imperatives at the lake,” and “sister song”

after all this busying of body, resisting rest
like a toddler hurling her blanket through the night,
after all these efforts manifesting goals, dreading
rejection, willing perfection like a cheerleader
Poetry
Featured image for ““A Duplex Only Turns 43 Twice,” “Accidentally Down and Out in Dublin,” “Here and There on a Triple-Helical Journey to the Islands and Highlands of Scotland””

Jake Sheff

“A Duplex Only Turns 43 Twice,” “Accidentally Down and Out in Dublin,” “Here and There on a Triple-Helical Journey to the Islands and Highlands of Scotland”

More insatiable than the desire to hoard,
Your fans say death’s a foreign coincidence.

They also say a forgotten coin’s never
Spent, but its odyssey costs us a day.

In 42, you slid like theodicy.
In Get on Up, you put an omen’s plaything
Poetry

Fiction

New Fiction

Featured image for “The White Blouse”

Kendall Klym

The White Blouse

Outskirts of a mining town in northern Minnesota
August 1990
A ten-year-old girl named Ursula Dahl chases after a porcupine behind her mother’s trailer, her frizzy red hair sparkling in the late-summer light. The animal escapes through a wild raspberry patch, but the child refuses to give up.
Short Story
Featured image for “A Life Made of Words”

T. G. Metcalf

A Life Made of Words

To respect the privacy of the person I’m going to tell you about, I’ve given him the alias Dr. Theodore J. Ammon. If I tell his story well, after you’ve read it you will ask yourself whether you have known people whose lives have been affected in a similar way by the experiences of their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.
Short Story
Featured image for “Reckoning”

Suzanne Zipperer

Reckoning

David Harris stood at the front of a group of about fifty protesters gathered in a church parking lot just east of a strip of I-43 designated as Jeannetta Simpson-Robinson Memorial Highway just north of downtown Milwaukee. He was closely listening to the instructions being given by a young woman wearing a black T-shirt with I Can’t Breathe printed in large, white, block letters across the chest.
Short Story
Featured image for “Quota”

Quin Yen

Quota

The hospital department chiefs hold monthly meetings in a conference room. The room has a high ceiling and tall windows. The walls are made of mahogany panels. There are large portraits of previous medical school deans on the wall. All of them are men in dark suits and black bow-ties, each holding either a pen or a book in their hands, looking straight ahead with an air of importance.
Short Story
Featured image for “Nostalgia Zombies”

Sean Newman

Nostalgia Zombies

Derry was my best friend, but that was a long time ago.
Since then, I built my career while Derry played in a band. I saved for retirement and Derry saw the world. And when I bought a house, Derry was still burning through a revolving door of roommates. Derry always used to say, “Sam… you’re the Yin to my Yang.”
Short Story
Featured image for “The Gilded Cage”

David Kennedy

The Gilded Cage

Laurenda did not like the look of those men, not at all. She had been hanging the washing up on the clothesline behind the cabin when she heard the tortured whinnying of horses driven too hard, and the whoops of men careless about their steeds. She dropped the children’s clothes in a heap upon the grass and hastened into the cabin.
Novel Chapter
Featured image for “The White Blouse”

Kendall Klym

The White Blouse

Outskirts of a mining town in northern Minnesota
August 1990
A ten-year-old girl named Ursula Dahl chases after a porcupine behind her mother’s trailer, her frizzy red hair sparkling in the late-summer light. The animal escapes through a wild raspberry patch, but the child refuses to give up.
Short Story
Featured image for “A Life Made of Words”

T. G. Metcalf

A Life Made of Words

To respect the privacy of the person I’m going to tell you about, I’ve given him the alias Dr. Theodore J. Ammon. If I tell his story well, after you’ve read it you will ask yourself whether you have known people whose lives have been affected in a similar way by the experiences of their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.
Short Story
Featured image for “Reckoning”

Suzanne Zipperer

Reckoning

David Harris stood at the front of a group of about fifty protesters gathered in a church parking lot just east of a strip of I-43 designated as Jeannetta Simpson-Robinson Memorial Highway just north of downtown Milwaukee. He was closely listening to the instructions being given by a young woman wearing a black T-shirt with I Can’t Breathe printed in large, white, block letters across the chest.
Short Story
Featured image for “Quota”

Quin Yen

Quota

The hospital department chiefs hold monthly meetings in a conference room. The room has a high ceiling and tall windows. The walls are made of mahogany panels. There are large portraits of previous medical school deans on the wall. All of them are men in dark suits and black bow-ties, each holding either a pen or a book in their hands, looking straight ahead with an air of importance.
Short Story
Featured image for “Nostalgia Zombies”

Sean Newman

Nostalgia Zombies

Derry was my best friend, but that was a long time ago.
Since then, I built my career while Derry played in a band. I saved for retirement and Derry saw the world. And when I bought a house, Derry was still burning through a revolving door of roommates. Derry always used to say, “Sam… you’re the Yin to my Yang.”
Short Story
Featured image for “The Gilded Cage”

David Kennedy

The Gilded Cage

Laurenda did not like the look of those men, not at all. She had been hanging the washing up on the clothesline behind the cabin when she heard the tortured whinnying of horses driven too hard, and the whoops of men careless about their steeds. She dropped the children’s clothes in a heap upon the grass and hastened into the cabin.
Novel Chapter
Featured image for “The White Blouse”

Kendall Klym

The White Blouse

Outskirts of a mining town in northern Minnesota
August 1990
A ten-year-old girl named Ursula Dahl chases after a porcupine behind her mother’s trailer, her frizzy red hair sparkling in the late-summer light. The animal escapes through a wild raspberry patch, but the child refuses to give up.
Short Story
Featured image for “A Life Made of Words”

T. G. Metcalf

A Life Made of Words

To respect the privacy of the person I’m going to tell you about, I’ve given him the alias Dr. Theodore J. Ammon. If I tell his story well, after you’ve read it you will ask yourself whether you have known people whose lives have been affected in a similar way by the experiences of their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.
Short Story
Featured image for “Reckoning”

Suzanne Zipperer

Reckoning

David Harris stood at the front of a group of about fifty protesters gathered in a church parking lot just east of a strip of I-43 designated as Jeannetta Simpson-Robinson Memorial Highway just north of downtown Milwaukee. He was closely listening to the instructions being given by a young woman wearing a black T-shirt with I Can’t Breathe printed in large, white, block letters across the chest.
Short Story
Featured image for “Quota”

Quin Yen

Quota

The hospital department chiefs hold monthly meetings in a conference room. The room has a high ceiling and tall windows. The walls are made of mahogany panels. There are large portraits of previous medical school deans on the wall. All of them are men in dark suits and black bow-ties, each holding either a pen or a book in their hands, looking straight ahead with an air of importance.
Short Story
Featured image for “Nostalgia Zombies”

Sean Newman

Nostalgia Zombies

Derry was my best friend, but that was a long time ago.
Since then, I built my career while Derry played in a band. I saved for retirement and Derry saw the world. And when I bought a house, Derry was still burning through a revolving door of roommates. Derry always used to say, “Sam… you’re the Yin to my Yang.”
Short Story
Featured image for “The Gilded Cage”

David Kennedy

The Gilded Cage

Laurenda did not like the look of those men, not at all. She had been hanging the washing up on the clothesline behind the cabin when she heard the tortured whinnying of horses driven too hard, and the whoops of men careless about their steeds. She dropped the children’s clothes in a heap upon the grass and hastened into the cabin.
Novel Chapter

Fiction


Featured image for “The White Blouse”

Kendall Klym

The White Blouse

Outskirts of a mining town in northern Minnesota
August 1990
A ten-year-old girl named Ursula Dahl chases after a porcupine behind her mother’s trailer, her frizzy red hair sparkling in the late-summer light. The animal escapes through a wild raspberry patch, but the child refuses to give up.
Short Story
Featured image for “A Life Made of Words”

T. G. Metcalf

A Life Made of Words

To respect the privacy of the person I’m going to tell you about, I’ve given him the alias Dr. Theodore J. Ammon. If I tell his story well, after you’ve read it you will ask yourself whether you have known people whose lives have been affected in a similar way by the experiences of their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.
Short Story
Featured image for “Reckoning”

Suzanne Zipperer

Reckoning

David Harris stood at the front of a group of about fifty protesters gathered in a church parking lot just east of a strip of I-43 designated as Jeannetta Simpson-Robinson Memorial Highway just north of downtown Milwaukee. He was closely listening to the instructions being given by a young woman wearing a black T-shirt with I Can’t Breathe printed in large, white, block letters across the chest.
Short Story
Featured image for “Quota”

Quin Yen

Quota

The hospital department chiefs hold monthly meetings in a conference room. The room has a high ceiling and tall windows. The walls are made of mahogany panels. There are large portraits of previous medical school deans on the wall. All of them are men in dark suits and black bow-ties, each holding either a pen or a book in their hands, looking straight ahead with an air of importance.
Short Story
Featured image for “Nostalgia Zombies”

Sean Newman

Nostalgia Zombies

Derry was my best friend, but that was a long time ago.
Since then, I built my career while Derry played in a band. I saved for retirement and Derry saw the world. And when I bought a house, Derry was still burning through a revolving door of roommates. Derry always used to say, “Sam… you’re the Yin to my Yang.”
Short Story

Art


LONG SHORT STORY

Novel Chapters

Nonfiction

Nonfiction


Featured image for “Whispers of the Beloved”

Toni Palombi

Whispers of the Beloved

Nestled in the Adelaide Hills, Father John’s home is warm and inviting. Outside, the trees are dampened by the winter rains. The sky is dark although it is only midday. John sits in a blue armchair by the heater. Green plants surround us in the living room where we sit.
Creative Nonfiction
Featured image for “Go Now”

M. Betsy Smith

Go Now

“We have no Rick Smith.” “What do you mean? I was told they brought him here.” “I’m sorry.” The [triage nurse’s] annoyance was unmistakable. I had no recourse but to wait. I’d received a call about fifteen minutes ago. My husband was found by the maintenance man outside, face down on the ground.
Creative Nonfiction
Featured image for “Memoir of a Zebrafish”

Lisa Lebduska

Memoir of a Zebrafish

I swam in the Ganges, source of life to a billion bipeds, golden, striped in a horizontal blue crayoned by a dreamy child. My parents, like all teleosts, were indifferent about my birth, abandoning my siblings and me, but I grew in a chorion cradle, nourished by yolk, a pulsing sphere.
Essay
Featured image for “A Few Light Edits”

Stephen Akey

A Few Light Edits

If you’re reading this, it’s only because it has passed through the net of editorial scrutiny. Presumably, an editor or editors have sharpened the argument, eliminated irrelevancies, tightened the prose, and reined in my more intemperate claims.
Essay
Featured image for “Anything But Ordinary”

Marianne Dalton

Anything But Ordinary

My car twists and curves as the city lights disappear behind me and my headlights spool deep into the dark abyss toward my rural home. I feel relieved I don’t have to face Dad tonight. I’m waiting until morning to break the news of Mom’s death to him.
Creative Nonfiction