“Of Possible War,” by Caitlin Scarano
When I wake up and come in to make coffee, my dead brother sits at the kitchen table. He doesn’t look much different than he looked before, except his skin seems a bit thinner. As the florescent light buzzes on, I think I can see the whole blue-green cartography of his circulatory system. He is naked. I’m cold. You must be, I reply, making a point not to look at his genitalia piled there between his legs on our mother’s nice mahogany...
“The Banshee and the Chef,” by Katie Umans
“Can you sense anything from the kitchen?” her mother asked one evening at their table in the new restaurant, tucking the girl’s hair behind an ear. “Blood? Recent suffering? Anything?” The family had gone to the restaurant a few times since it opened, enough that the girl was starting to get embarrassed, though the chef was always warm and welcoming when he came to their table to ask how they liked the meal. It was a small town,...
“Mass Grave, Ukraine,” by Laura Lauth
This is a good story. So good you will forget and walk out into a honeycomb grid of black bark and hay, the orchard’s shifting light—and no one minds that you’re a stranger. Here, they ladder rows of sweet Opal, dividing market fruit from cull. In the meadow below, a man plays violin tuned in perfect fifths—an apple’s slender pedicel or a bird shot mid-flight. Above, mason bees dip and wheel. The Boh river flows past as it always has,...
“What you Aren’t Allowed to Say,” by Kate Angus
That for years you did not come not once not ever unless you were sleeping; you woke up sometimes with the ocean filling a blue hollow at the crest of your legs–rolling whitecaps and seabirds above. That you were ashamed you were made of wet straw that wouldn’t cinder so you faked it with your lovers every time. That you believed admitting the truth would be like in the movies when someone says they’re scared of the basement and...
Announcing the 7th Gift of Freedom
“The Gift of Freedom is one of the heftiest grants available to writers anywhere and is the largest open solely to women in the United States.”—Poets & Writers The 7th Gift of Freedom application is now open Deadline: November 2, 2015
Does the sea remember everything? I wonder.
Does she absorb everything? Does she keep it safe?
Virginia Woolf
. . .
The Q: Can you fathom the spectacle that would be created if we moved together, arms outstretched, close enough to touch?
The Q: What echoes through you that longs to take form—a poem, an image, a mark, a whisper of becoming?
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fathoms Feb 28, 2026 -
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