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Mea Andrews I’M SORRY My husband asks if this is my first time seeing this and it feels odd to reassure him that it is not, I have seen my mother beaten and naked, I have seen my father hit…

William Hawkins FAMILY’S GOT EVERYTHING A GOOD COUNTRY SONG NEEDS Look at you. They’re wiping the last bits of birth off you, two nurses in lilac scrubs weighing you, measuring you, lifting up your arms, your legs, poking, wiping—they’re absolutely…

Joan Mazza RANGE MAPS My love of maps and the tales they tell take me to the back of the Peterson Field Guide of Eastern Birds, where I can see the breeding range for every bird, each duck or wading…

Mazzy Sleep LOST   Part 1 Drawings on the wall, Chalked scripts, the Slow breaths upon The cold paper, Letters running through the margin, This is the last thing you ever Said: a small drawing of a cat In deep,…

Grace Cavalieri HEART MISSION       It wasn't so much that you were hurt --and who among us is not hurt-- It's more that you had no one to tell, I'm listening and If loneliness still fits, wear it, let…

Erin Wilson BECOMING THE SILENCE OF FOXES     Crouched in the autumn wood, I remove the map of my skull.   I grow down, out and upward.   Rain becomes lost inside the raining of leaves.   I try…

Mark Lilley THE LANGUAGE OF FORGIVENESS     The road to my friend’s house runs along the east side of the Licking River. On summer days you might find boys fishing on the lower banks or roughhousing knee-deep and shirtless…

Claire Scott INSOMNIA Gummies, Ambien, Melatonin, Lunesta no alcohol whatsoever (Nyquil is cheating) eating sea slug entrails, lathering my hair in a mixture of mustard and mayonnaise rubbing the ear wax of a dog on my left foot reading Moby-Dick…

Michael Rogner MOTHER WATCH ME CANNONBALL Sand in the barrens. Squeaking ovals of Appalachian quartz. The memory reassembly is complete though four screws and a nut lay ignored on the floor. Hurricanes of laughter scattering oak debris. Armadillos tucked into…

Micah Daniel McCrotty SKIPJACK After twenty-five acres of corporate lawns, he paused from mowing under a short ginko tree to take a pull from a gallon jug and shade his neck against summer sun. He watched a man emerge from…