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No matter how many times I pass
by Perry Janes the Dollar General parking lot whereconcrete bergs sprout improbablered flowers, the sinkhole photo shoot,a bride’s train graying in coal ash, orthe corner cafe, mounds of cronut sugarshared between strangers in February sun—those ruins, again. That word, ruinsome dust storm clouding the scene.If it’s true, we learn by imitation,somewhere, a boy empties himselfon…
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Ozymandias of the Plains
by Emma Aylor Amarillo, Texas I hear his legs just won’t stay naked. When the artistsandblasts the socks, a new pair appears: turquoise blue,once; white with red stripes at the tops; the American flag splitin two. The latter pair dressed the legs—severed by design—when I saw them on the winter rangeland, the stump of the…
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There Is a Chill in the Air
by Noelle McManus For Francesca Woodman A conversation with my mother aboutpsychiatric hospitals. About cigarette burns.How much money are you making. Is itenough. Do you remember when you took drugson the sand and thought you were an alienand everything seemed better that way.That never happened I say you’re imagining things.All I did was stand on…
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When You Come Out to Your Parents at Age 48
by Tippy Rex People like to buy secluded homes in the woods far from goods and services, and then demand that you come and stay at these homes. I can tell that the guest rooms will be cold and that I will fail to muster the appropriate level of enthusiasm for the black-capped chickadees on the…
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interlude: the swan describes the war
by Maria Zoccola the first day, the big cheese sends half a can of waspkill into the nest on the porch. not truly a nest. a clump of gold and black bodies moving over and around each other, fixed at the join of siding and gutter. they fall to the cement with a sound like…
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Inscrutable
by Matthew E. Henry Content warning: racial language and violence This world is white and they are black. —James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time He knows the myth, but he is the model minority. The all-around A-student: attentive, astute, Asian. He’s good at math and science, but also garners excellent grades and respect in my sophomore…
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Bringing a Gun to Chekhov’s House
by Robert Wood Lynn It’s a party everyone’s real happy to see you andyou’re not stupid you don’t show them the gun nobodyis happy to see a gun and after all it’s his house andyou know how he gets so you’re gonna leave itwith the coats and there’s gonna be someone realcute there at the…
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Iceman and My Inner Artist
by Michael Brooks 2005 When they saw no trace of my “inner artist,” I knew I was about to disappear—faster than Nightcrawler could teleport. Pops spent the spring digging through dumpsters and gluing trash collages together. And Ma? She poured clay over her belly to make plasters, fired them in the kiln, and then stuck ‘em…
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Ganyang Cina*
by Jeddie Sophronius I have found my kind hiding withinthe walls of their shophouses. They speak ina forbidden language among their own,one which I’ve never learned. They’ve changed their names into something easier to pronounce:a forest is shaped into a monk, amemory is molded into faith, andthe flood dries up and becomes sky. Some have…
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Notes from a brown mother
by Naomi Kanakia My thieving bairn is fullishcrafty kind, with rosy cheeksAnd a totty mind. She goeth throughMy cupboards all, desks and drawersThrow, and the impress of her butterHands, marks every bagatelleWith the sweat of her disdain.I seen her looks, her tiny toes,The mind that cannot kenThe language and the thoughtOf the Anglo-Saxon race.You’ll have…
