I This boy is about to decant the cleanser into the pruney mouthfold of a gerbil. He looks like the spiked onset of a yawn, making bantam contortions, enduring the faint torque of unwatchable cable. His shelf contains the brazen, the nautical objects: pronouns, pendants. Portrait of a rocking chair. Ambiguous taxidermy: damp. A wounded bird and mouse’s ear, whittled, glued into a baseball glove. … Continue reading Boy In Three Parts by Jacob Kahn

[the very very blue] i told my son the very very blue is a day with a want so great it removes the pleasure of accomplishing the task of getting dressed without falling down and getting dressed without falling down is the first goal of all people but when you see that sky is even more so there is a clamp that opens your heart … Continue reading Two Poems by Darren C. Demaree

IV I wasn’t ready for two-a-days. That’s a practice in the morning and another practice in the afternoon with a break in the middle to eat lunch and avoid the sun. Two-a-days started two weeks before and lasted until the school year started. The go-getters on the team trained over the summer, lifted weights and ran. I ate mint chocolate chip ice cream and jerked … Continue reading SLAB IV / V / VI by Big Bruiser Dope Boy

If you were to mark iniquities, who, O Lord, shall stand? For with you is forgiveness; and because of your law, I stand by you. My soul has stood by your word, and your inexpert moves on the dance floor, at dawn. Who cares about the future? Why choose me out of the eye, ear, and mouth candy of multiplicity? I just do not understand. … Continue reading Vow by Virginia Konchan

When everyone else was growing new wings, fangs and ways of maiming, I craved the sensation of disappearing. We spent our days in the lacquered surface of pools, as they dip against the decks and the decks bend into wet grass, iteratively and unnaturally. It was so achingly warm, heat pooling and draining across the desert.   We were 12 at the time and Phoenix, … Continue reading Forfeiture by Saritha

The walk to the quarter was terrific, sunny but unoppressive, a non-totalitarian star. I was passing a navel orange between my right hand and my left. We stopped in the market to buy some sunglasses. I tried to haggle but I lost. Still tossing the orange back and forth, I said, I love the marketplace. I went to Mary Jane’s for some cigarettes, Ellie was … Continue reading Palm Sunday by Theo Francis

There was a lamp post outside of a prosperous house where sat a bench where sat a drunken boatman far from the shore on which he landed, tossed there over the course of some days by this wind and that, demurred by humbling experiences, bridled by wisdom, kept warm by the spirits imbibed out of a leaky pouch which never grew entirely empty, and even … Continue reading News From The Coast by Joshua Rothes

He was blind drunk by noon. At night he fixed the Tercel. He let the oil and the antifreeze sink into the lawn. It was fine. He owned the land. He hated the earth. There was no one around for miles. No one could hear him. No one could even if he stood outside and screamed until his lungs were emptied. Sometimes men came over. … Continue reading The Tercel At Night by Meagan Maguire

I don’t have to tell you I didn’t offer to pay for the Chinese food she ordered. We sat in the living room, a place I rarely hung around since my roommate, who was also named David, had more or less disappeared. Laura didn’t want to take the cat that wasn’t mine with her. She said, ―I wish I could but I just don’t have … Continue reading Walls of Gold by David Fishkind

The worst drug dealer in the world woke up that evening at about 6:45 P.M. He got out of bed. He scratched his taint then rubbed his eyes. He picked up a half finished, warm beer from the coffee table and choked it down. He walked over to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. The worst drug dealer in the world lit a cigarette … Continue reading The Worst Drug Dealer In The World by David Catney