I’ve had the words, “shelter in place” as a backdrop to other thoughts.
Issue 10
Front Matter
Staff
Meet the team.
Fiction
Old Cadillac People
The first thing on Jane’s mother’s list was the UPS store. There was always something to send back. Not all items passed muster. “Too yellow,” Margaret had said, handing the opened box to Jane. “And I sincerely doubt there is one natural fiber in that blouse. Silk, indeed!” Jane printed out the return form, bundled… Read more »
The Ballad of Natsumi-Lynn
It was hot the day my wife came back to me from the dead.
The Has Been, The Dancer, The Invader
Daphne’s left rib glistened with aquasoft, a thin layer over her fresh tattoo, an outline of a maple tree.
The Very Short Life of Andrew Norton
The child never stood a chance, born in a thunderstorm in the back seat of a mid-sized sedan.
Poetry
Alive or Dead
You are either alive or dead
one or the other
there is a clear boundary
distinct like the River Styx
Cosmological Sonnets
An impact of two black holes is said to produce more energy
than all of the suns in the universe. And we may observe
D.S. al coda
Love is a melody
that in the silence
How The World Does Not Work
Isn’t this what we all do, sooner or later,
try to take back the mistakes, the words said
in anger, the sins that haunt our dreams?
In the Kingdom of Perpetual Night
where all their lost, original songs
squeeze the bellows of death,
sing with mouths of sun & flint
such lullabies of dread
Love Potion
Deep fried everything, buttered biscuits, hot grits with syrup,
black-eyed peas, corn bread,
bacon drippings collected in coffee cans
Mixing Your Legends
After the wedding, as bride
and groom depart, you muddle
your legends and turn yourself
into a pillar of salt. A glimpse
Municipal Pool
We could get away by ourselves when we turned twelve,
could necktie beach towels, corsage the octagonal badge, the
get-away made on flip-flops if we lived closed enough.
Primrose Hill
as they link in
70s raincoat logic
Separate Vacations
She’s away from home,
but won’t say for how
long. Her husband is out
Six Days: A Creation Myth
The markings of the world:
disc of desert blur,
concentric sphere imagining itself
divided and conquered.
A man’s rusted compass,
a woman’s hint of blue shadow.
The Frequency of a Periodic Function
Silence won’t stand
for itself. It won’t
The Man Who Decided To See
And so he began. And for the first time saw
the boy whose bicycle sped by his porch,
then the yellowing leaf on the back step.
Wild Parrots
They fly in flocks at dusk,
shrill caws of mourning
echoing through the still sky.
Wreck
in tender onyx,
under pressure,
cooking,
the sun spits
it’s splits onto
the ship that
peels like
a croissant.
Nonfiction
Some Things I Used To Remember
We never spoke of my father. Nobody did. Her first marriage was strictly off limits. When I finally did build up the nerve to ask about him, she abruptly told me that her current husband was my father.
Back Matter
Thank You
First, thank you to Sam Snoek-Brown and Chuck Rybak. Without the two of you as editors there wouldn’t have been an Issue 10. Also, thank you to our new editorial assistants who volunteered to read for the issue. Finally, thank you to the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation for supporting creative writing in the community.