Category: 23.1

  • Drag Queen Story Hour: The Little Mermaid

    by David Moolten “It was a favorite exercise with Andersen to read aloud his fairy tales . . .”For campy, pearl-clutching furornothing beats a library. That’s where to find small children in MAGA hats,a pastor with his outdoor voicetrumpeting the apocalypse.Meanwhile, Ariel, replete with green sequinsand a strapless scallop bra, tells her side.What could be…

  • Visual Purple

    by Jessica Goodfellow       an image on the retina  |                                          the last thing ever  |       seen  |                    before death it was believed  |                   & it could be retrieved  |                                                by ‘fixing’  |           like a photograph  |-ic negative  |      with the pigment rhodopsin  |    also known as visual purple  |                               in an alum  |                                                  solution …

  • egg game

    by Tom Kelly i knock the small round stone              off its altar and it nestles        snug in my glitch        when i aim at a window        the glitch explodes              my neighbors believe the stone              is an egg and the egg is god      they glitch over how i harmed…

  • Introduction to “Brides Glue Component”

    by William Kitcher       I have been asked by the editors of this fine and august magazine to write an introduction to my short story, “Brides Glue Component.” I’m very flattered to have received this request for two reasons. The first is that I have never been invited to do so before, and the second is…

  • The Room

    by Jarrett Moseley The blue pills you cut in halflay on the table, next to a glass of water I poured for you, untouched. Outside: A long day with no clouds, skya shade you named Miami Winter Blue. You are sitting with a blanket over your head,hiding, afraid to speak while being seen. You say,…

  • One is a Little, Ten is a Lot

    by Paul Stinson       Kids aren’t stupid. They see everything. They’re full of questions, too. Not that we have too many answers.      I just say, “We’re going to have you feeling much better soon, sweetie. Trust me.”      The smallest ones sometimes get spooked around all the doctors and nurses. They get scared of all the equipment. It helps…

  • please do not rip the paperboard as well

    by Abdulbasit A. Olúwaníshọlá “It is only through names we will be saved.”—Romeo Oriogun, The Mystic of Small Dreamsit is only through death our existence will be known. we write our names on our skin. at least, when you dig through the rubble of our homes & find us, our massacred bodies, with no one to identify us, check our arms—that…

  • Walrus vs. Elephant Seal

    by Betsy Mitchell Martinez after Jerry Pallotta How many tunes can you play with that tiredproboscis? How many times can I resist the call, dilute your trumpetwith the white noise of the sea? I snuff along the shallows, churning sand, my whiskers in vibration with a feast below the floor. The shellsI suction into shards…

  • Ghazal for heart’s dissonance in two Urdu letters

    by Abhilipsa Sahoo “They ask me to tell them what Shahid means—Listen: It means “The Beloved” in Persian, “witness” in Arabic.”—Agha Shahid Ali, “Ghazal”Your name trembles on my tongue, Shahid or Shaheed?Each sound a shadow of what I’ve believed, Shahid.In the hastened diction of kāaf and qāaf, two breaths divideAshk falls gently; ishq must bleed,…

  • Us Like Intricate Quipu

    by Sarah E. N. Kohrs Transparent glass is always|: cold to touch— pressed intimatelyagainst the lip, as if kissingthe taut cheek of someonenever known for their warmthand love. ⊕ We see it coming and yetstill ignore it—hoping death will passbecause we took a vaccinationor a pill that promises longevityof mind. Rewinding time, sowe won’t have…