William Roebuck
William Roebuck SCALING MOUNT WHITMAN: LEAVES OF GRASS AND AMERICA’S FIRST GREAT ‘AWOKENING’ Cards on the table. I’m not a Whitman scholar. Put me down, I guess, as a plain old reader who likes literature. As I’ve gotten…
Deborah Copperud
Deborah Copperud MVMOMS On my last trip to the Washburn branch of the Hennepin County Library as a volunteer book reviewer, I elbow the automatic door opener. I am oblivious that, before my next visit, I will resign my…
Notes on Issue 75
Albert Kapikian Editor's Note NOTES ON ISSUE 75 A community college is a commons tasked with the search for the common interest. Montgomery College, through its literary journal, has been tasked also with the search for another kind of…
Mark Doyle
Mark Doyle THE CONSOLATIONS OF WATERLOO SUNSETS This is a song about finding yourself alone and being okay with that. This is a song about finding hope in endings. [0:00 descending bassline] One night in Washington, DC, my…
Kale Hensley
Kale Hensley I RECKON WITH MY FEET The first time a girl witnesses her toes in the mouth of another, she would not have anticipated it happening during a game at church. It is complicated. I use that word in…
Mea Andrews/I’m Sorry
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…
Samodh Porawagamage / All the Salty Sand in Our Mouths
by Samodh Porawagamage Excerpts from All the Salty Sand in Our Mouths TO COUSIN G. We’ve all grown up and you are nowhere close to schooling, so late that, even I, the youngest of the lot, know…
John Rolfe Gardiner / Tree Men
by John Rolfe Gardiner TREE MEN You’re as likely to be hit twice by lightning on a Monday as see a wood-chipper pull a man into its maw. Rare, as well, is the member of an arborist crew who hasn’t…
Jill Sisson Quinn / Two Hours
by Jill Sisson Quinn Two Hours They had spent three days under the rubble, and during that time her mistake of letting the dog get fat suddenly became an asset. The warmth emanating from Silas’s back, which was pressed against…
Annabelle Smith / As Frog Is My Witness
by Annabelle Smith As Frog Is My Witness This is how the summer begins. Mama and I sit in the parlor. A cigarette hangs from her lips, smudged carmine like the clay smeared beneath my toenails from playing in the…