Volume 5, Issue 3
POETRY
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"...I heard you say fever
cough, short of breath; fever, cough, short of breath and thought of persimmons that ripen, coaxed: little orbs, little flames: and names..." [READ FULL WORK] **This poem was written for Front Lines, a documentary poetry project pairing poets with physicians on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. A website where readers can learn more about the project and read other Front Lines poems is forthcoming.
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FICTION [Contest Winner]
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"0 micromorts
Stubbed toes, LSD, papercuts, and cigarettes. ... 37,932 Micromorts Mt. Everest. 37,932 micromorts per ascent attempt. The mountain has claimed the lives of many. 37,932 deaths for every million people that attempt the climb. Well, I suppose this is the tax they must pay to reach the top of the world. Cold, snow, oxygen-deprivation, exhaustion. So beware all adventure seekers, unless you see the world the same way Peter does: “To die will be an awfully big adventure.” ... 500,000 Micromorts What psychopathic maniac are we talking about here? Only one thing comes to mind for a number this high, and it’s marrying Henry VIII..." [READ FULL WORK] |
POETRY
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"Agate autumn evening in bed, inside me verbs unfurl, fernlike fractals
Becoming new branches, leaf-words strewn or gathered, brindle, a typesetter’s Case overturned, lead letters littering the ground to collect, coalesce into rich-man Dreams, sumptuous as cinnamon, textured as dimpled damask, soft-rumbling as an Engine; English lets me step into her like a bath, a new skin, my mama’s voice Forming the florid hazel forest of Yeats’ Aengus, who pursues inspiration, a Girl with apple-blossom hair, chased through lands dappled, golden, hilly, Hollow, but he never has her, the pursuit itself a heady headlong hagiography. I love my language as a lover loves, how it—sultry, soft, delicious, dazzling, Jocund, joyous, morose, milky, bursting with birdsong, moist in the mouth--" [READ FULL WORK] |
PROSE POETRY
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"If you were all water (and you mostly are) Alpine pure, gentle as dandelion seeds, strong as hummingbird inspections, their beaks pointing at your third eye, mistaking for a moment your face for a sunflower, you would remember as well as any elephant every electromagnetic spectrum communication you’ve ever overheard. You would remember what a deep freeze you made of Walden Pond during Underground Railroad winter days..."
[READ FULL WORK] |
FICTION (Novel Excerpt)
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"Thirty-five years or more ago. Before the journey to this America, the deaths and might-as-well-be deaths. Such a span of time and yet still I remember. The waterlight coming clean over the roofs at dayend. To wash the roads like rain. The sun thronesitting at the streamedge, winking Godeye picking out in light the high tree leaves. You, you, I choose, not you. In the mudstreets the broken pots and chicken blood turned to gold dust and our house to polished brass, warm flameedge orange..."
[READ FULL WORK] |
Customized illustrations for all published pieces are provided by Evgenia Barsheva.