-
Ode to the Famous Taxidermy Winged Kitten
Sarah Belli “The Famous Taxidermy Winged Kitten” art by Viktor Wynd Why would someone steal you?I ask, your mouth wide, waiting for a scream to shrivelthe matted fur, discolored like a rotting orange plucked, left on my counter. I’d put it in my mouth, an orange slicemolding between my cheeks, hoping it will breathe if I suck…
-
A Sow Gives Birth at the Maryland State Fair
Christian Paulisich It was far too hot in that barn with billy goats and ducks, teacup pigs and humans to tell just how many men had fingered condoms in their pockets, tractor keys, and tickets with their scalloped edges like cut up paper people; how many first kisses were to be had on the Ferris wheel, seats sticky with vanilla ice…
-
Severed
Lorraine Hanlon Comanor “We in some measure shape the events that befall us just as surely as we are shaped by them.” —Mark Slouka, Arrow and Wound I’m sitting in a theater—when or where I’m unsure—watching Nicholas and Alexandra, a film I thought to be in black and white, but since confirmed was in color.…
-
What the Water Knows
By Chloe Willows It didn’t start with water. It started with something much more ordinary, a routine document, an approved decision, a quiet human error wrapped in well-meaning intentions. But the world is not made of our intentions. It is made of consequences. And water, being the most patient force on Earth, knew how to…
-
Bachi
By Melissa Llanes Brownlee Grandpa yells, cursing those fuckers who killed Daisy, and Mom tells him to calm down, yelling not going do nothing, and Grandpa says, we should bachi them, send the black kahuna after them, and Mom tells him what that going do and she never believe that kine stuff anyway, and I’m…
-
house of fish and turtles
by Lilith Acadia My 岳母 yuèmǔ visited here, bearing 波羅麵包 bōluó miànbāoand memoriesof her childhood home like this one,built when the city was Japanese Taihoku;the door locks reminded her—she reached to twist the tiny screw,to extract it from the carefully aligned mouth and slide out into the garden— she missed her pondthe size of eight tatami mats, drawing her afterschool…
-
FISH IN A BLENDER
by Aether I stand in the corner of my aunt’s kitchen watching her red fish swim tinylaps around the blender, cerulean plastic rocks cradle the blades. my mom calls me her son. my grandma introduces me asher grandson. I haven’t told anyone my secret yetbut maybe they can see the difference. when my mom tells…
-
Unprecedented Weather Patterns
by Julia Leef It’s raining. No one knows it yet, but this is the final day of what we will later designate as “the before times.” People duck for cover beneath umbrellas, shelter in their homes, and hurry down sidewalks to avoid being drenched by the soaking, harmless water. We close our window shades, pray…
-
Farmer’s Market
by Sacha Bissonnette And what do we do to feel safe ?We cut out pounds of our own flesh for dowry, for position, we give up sensibility and carve out pieces of bone, pounded into flour, and then we hope, we hope that our forearms can still knead. And at that Sunday market, I will sell…
-
California (The Sun Turned His Back to Me)
By Lucie Turkel My last great manic high started at the Beverly Hilton and fuck did it feel good. Sun on my face. Ocean spray. Eating half a croissant all day smoking cigarettes by myself fuck did it feel good. It was overcast when I got there of course. I didn’t care. I was there for…
