Colleen Abel The word deviant. A lovely, leering word, its two keening e sounds and the snap shut of its final syllable. You would never guess this body harbors such linguistic loveliness....
Nikki Reklitis First Things First He will walk towards you in a sky-blue shirt and you will know it’s him. His eyes will be wide and deep and beautiful. You will walk together past Mooney’s Bay,...
Anna Krem My mother stands at the mirror in the bathroom of our old house, holding a cheap plastic palette of makeup she bought on clearance a year ago. She swabs at a square with the stubby black...
Bill Moran 1. Oh yeah well my Grandpaw says, hey, hey my Pawpaw says: “When god spoke us into existence, he slurred and forgot his words. Wanted to say ‘bright’ but said ‘bone’ and here we...
Konstantin Kulakov I. Metrorail. A spent, amber streetlight. There, a deer tearing at warm grass— a nauseous-sweet mist rising as from a Bangladeshi garden. Tomorrow, the sun will climb over...
Gillian Cummings You were about to float away so they taught you not to. Soft-crofted into quiet they come, finely fretted in frocks of spook light—winged ones they bring, goldfinch, marlin,...
Nancy Hewitt There’s a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in. – Leonard Cohen A warm front’s arriving, blasts of sun knifing their way through thunderous...
Jennifer Murvin I always borrow the babies during the last week of September, when it is warm enough to have the children outside in strollers but cool enough for my navy coat, the one with...
Todd Seabrook Joel had a wedding and we all went. The groomsmen played bocce on the grass, all of us throwing the balls, red, yellow, blue, green, all the colors and all the balls, throwing...
Alexandra Lytton Regalado Máma Carmen said Ada came to burden her life because she was born blue-eyed. Not that milky grey that most new mothers boast about. Later, you see those same babies...
