February 13, 2020 | Poetry
Textual joy
Stevie Belchak
I render a coin
for something
I forgot
the sky
scratching itself
into decency
when I
wake up
always rattling
around
in my skin
a new aesthetic
I
February 13, 2020 | Fiction
Winter’s Children
Mark Benedict
Brian was psyched too. Not about her requests—Tom Waits was more his groove—but about where things seemed to be headed.
February 12, 2020 | Nonfiction
About a Million Joans
Gabe Montesanti
“How do I know if it’s right?” I wrote. “How did you know?” “I just knew,” she texted back.
A Difficult Trek with My Daughter
Rasheena Fountain
I ain’t supposed to know about these woods. But I did know the coyotes.
The Red Ones Come From Taillights
Erin Lyndal Martin
To be naked on the beach after a storm is something special—the salt and the petrichor and the hum of being unsettled that maybe the torrential rains caused damage, that maybe there were nearby ships that will never make it to harbor.
My First CD: Dr. Dre's The Chronic
Phillip Scott Mandel
My Magic cards were the coolest thing about me.
From the Sublime to the Hilarious: On Damascus Gate by Robert Stone (part 1)
Madison Smartt Bell
Stone had two modes of handwriting: one a gnarly cursive he used to talk to himself and the other block capitals, more easily legible. On a scrap of torn paper in a crate of Damascus Gate research material is a draft of a self-mocking doggerel poem...
Protection
Diana Whitney
I could not imagine the dark well of her grief. I wanted to pretend it had nothing to do with me. But I felt compelled to bear witness somehow.
Reflection
Molly Gabriel
Violet and I sit in her bed a while and talk. She shows me how to unhook and snake a bra through a sleeve.
sorry for taking
Patrycja Humienik
so long to call back
the first time the phone
rang i was beneath a
bridge when you rang
again the roar of cars and
cargo overhead made it too
loud to hear you sense of
sea partially
The Last Time I Saw Zac Smith
Giacomo Pope
“When Zac started writing the poems, I didn’t think it would get to this.”
On Malcolm Lowry
Robert Stone
Two thousand nine is the centennial year of Malcolm Lowry, the British novelist and poet, whose extraordinary novel Under the Volcano appeared in 1947. Lowry’s first version of it was a loosely constructed story about Britons who witness a violent crime in Mexico.
You Against You
James Yates
If Clubber Lang just chilled out, he would’ve been in Rocky’s corner, too.
Today on Dagobah, Ep. 4: "Sinkhole"
Josh Sippie
“Foresee this, I did not,” Yoda commiserated. But he knew what he had to do. He just didn’t know if he could do it.
I Would Be a Better Woman If I Were Dumber or Nicer
Carrie Murphy
People are always saying...
A Kind of Miracle
Evan Senie
Marlon, breath puffing out in the cool morning air, says to no one that if the students cry, he will cry too. This isn’t a process you want to see again through new eyes.
Go Big or Go Home
Michael Meyerhofer
Here come the ones who chose / the second option...
My First Porn Video
Adeniyi Ademoroti
You would have believed on the screen was where my attention stayed.
A Problem of Vertigo
Elizabeth Horneber
Recently, I told my mother that I used to climb out of the bathroom window in the upstairs and crawl out onto the chimney ledge, where one slip of the ankle, knee, wrist, and I would have fallen three stories onto cement. Perhaps it began as another peace offering—I was trying to amuse her.
My First Real Sneakers
Christian Aguiar
There was no way you could have a pair of Nikes and get clowned.