Redacted by Alexandra Persad The first thing Sarah noticed about the men was their sameness. Their artificial smiles and moussed hair above the neck, their unbuttoned polo shirts and severely white shoes below it. Even their positioning—leaning back in…
Creature By David Ryan I’d taken up smoking again. I knew I was better than this, but there it was, the red and white pack on the table, the pale blue lighter, a yellow tarred smell on my fingers…
All Jules Wants is a Peloton by Rachel Furey Stage 1: Exit Gynecologist’s Office Jules is usually a screamer, but this is beyond screaming. The worst of birthday presents. Like a fucking pinata breaking open inside of her. Her breath…
Ellen June Wright And miles to go before I sleep (after Robert Frost) Mother is nocturnal. Moments of freedom come late into the evening. After everyone has gone to bed, she finds the strength, at 99, to rise and roam—knowing…
G. H. Mosson Sharing the Wound I like it here, beyond signposts and summaries, says the painter Clyfford Still to a friend who’s moving to the hill country “forever.” Yes, says Still, we all should disappear into what we must…
Emma Thomas Jones Photo of Father on a Motorcycle Looking like a Beatle: bowled hair thick and sideswept. Corner of sun catching cattails, swinging to a silent tune, bike draped in sugar crystals—glazed leather seats, white stripes bleached and my…
Connie Jordan Green These Bones at Eighty-Four These bones grow brittle as we age, the limber shock- absorbing joints of our youth now gnarled knuckles that scarcely grip a pencil. And what of fish bones, skeletons thin as a wish…
Chris Bullard Instant A white-tailed deer strides intothe Wissahickon, stops mid-stream,bordered by water, framed by trees. My eye clicks like a latch as I create a holding of this time and place, my own box containing a deer shape joined…
Ode to My BreastsI have no memory of the buds, the hard fistsof hormones hauling you up not unlikethe earth moved by velvety voles.Warm friends, I underestimated you.You grew out of sinewy muscle and fat,that dirty word, that dense tissuewhy…
Margaret Mackinnon AT LAST, WHAT EVE UNDERSTOOD After a 15th century manuscript illumination Adam is oblivious, crouching down to name yet another unnamed blade of grass, while the Serpent Girl, walking still, approaches Eve and will seem to her…