To Finally Embrace Living

Nick Kowalczyk   That Tuesday morning I awoke with an aching body and yellow shit clumped around my eyes and caked across my temples like two dried-out streams during a summer drought. It was...

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Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder (Complicated Grief)

Chelsea Dingman   “The truth is, that every death is violent.”-Samuel Johnson Then, let me know the violence of the last day of sun. The violence of a thousand orphaned forget-me-nots,...

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A Lesson in Weight and Thankfulness

Moira J. I am borne of cactus fruit and seeds from the mesquite tree—my arms are weatherworn and I dream of dancing, my legs giving way to tallow and meat, bones being worked into needles and...

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Riddle of the Runaway Earth

Johnny Damm Benjamin Patterson (1934-2016) Johnny Damm is the author of Science of Things Familiar (The Operating System, 2017) and the chapbooks Your Favorite Song (Essay Press, 2016) and The...

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TIME TO BLEED

Ander Monson No one talks enough about how Schwarzenegger looks on-screen. Or how his face is lit in every shot: one sees what California did in him to make him governor. In 1987 I would have...

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In Flight

Brenda Miller and Julie Marie Wade   My brother-in-law, who flies planes for a living, tells me that no one can die in the sky. “But people die everywhere,” I protest.  “That’s the...

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Tigers for Tamir Rice

2017 Greg Grummer Poetry Award Winner, Chosen by Monica Youn   Jennifer Givhan My last time in the underworld I followed        a tiger          the book said tigers could be...

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Clevelanding

Betty Rosen   I learned “city” from Cleveland and its drone of heart-rot, clotting-rust hopelessness. I still read in its script of nostalgia. Its bridges crash down into silver water,...

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Wake Up Call

Steven Church   Fort Collins, CO 1999   Where’s the baby? I called out in the dark. Half asleep, I sat up in bed. Where’s the baby? I asked again. I’d been troubled recently...

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Register of Futures: Florida

Jessica Guzman Alderman   1. The limestone crevasse like stale bread & phosphogypsum butter,                                    one drawn gulp under a power...

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