Rapunzel Brings Her Women’s Studies Class to the Tower by Susan J. Erickson
“Rapunzel Brings Her Women’s Studies Class to the Tower” by Susan J. Erickson The setup looked so innocent. Like a rustic LEGO estate. Before you ask, the ivy escape route now clambering up the walls was tended by an apprentice of Edward Scissorhands. The Government was reclaiming this tract for a planned wilderness. It was so quiet...
Final Crescent by Jane Schulman
“Final Crescent” by Jane Schulman Think of me on bruise-blue nights when the moon wanes to a wisp and you scan the eastern sky, wondering. And think of me as a crocus,...
Wanting for Grace by Donna J. Gelagotis Lee
“Wanting for Grace” by Donna J. Gelagotis Lee The mist over the olive grove lifts through the cypress trees and I can taste the olive’s pungency, the heat rising off sunburnt twigs. I yearn to drink. Fully awake, the sun spun out, I step vigorously along the...
She Shall Soon Find a Way by Julie Babcock
“She Shall Soon Find a Way” by Julie Babcock Gingerbread after an exile. After the funeral pyre has smoked down and the last bread crumbs stolen. How sweet now to have found this forest house, ground cinnamon and ginger, spiced bark and root, a revival. Of course she eats it....
Mrs. Ramsey by Rebecca Ruth Gould
“Mrs. Ramsey” by Rebecca Ruth Gould Meaning suddenly suffused the subway on her way to pick flowers freshly cut for her son’s graduation. She became symbolical, a representation lingering in London’s dusk while the onlookers concluded their business, closed their shops, said goodbye to colleagues, headed home. The concentration of wife mother woman left untouched her mysterious hankering for solitude. ...
The Siege of Ennis by Eileen O’Leary
“The Siege of Ennis” by Eileen O’Leary Bernard and his daughter, Cathy, are visiting his childhood home. He has decided he wants the place. His sister, Agnes, lives here. His sister, Marian, has traveled here and wants it for herself. This excerpt is Bernard and Agnes in ACT II. BERNARD You’re going to throw it all away. The last bit of it. The last crumb. Could you not be satisfied to leave me a...
Her American Life by Sokunthary Svay
“Her American Life” by Sokunthary Svay She prays to her altar, says God but means something else. The incense hangs in the room like her ancestral spirits. Cambodian karaoke blares through the steel door. In the hallway, neighbors mistake it for Chinese. Down the elevator, Spanish speakers pretend she can’t understand “Filipina.” Jehovah’s Witnesses ring on weekends. She holds her breath until their voices...
Untitled [the dark knows this] by Jennifer Patterson
“Untitled [the dark knows this]” by Jennifer Patterson The dark knows this (1), the lap-fuls of minutes ‘til eyes shut, the way the throat feels blocked and gutted at the same time. Deep in the belly of a well. There is an absence fingers know, a leaving. Fingers try to grip. Where it’s wooded, where it’s windowless, where the quilt has weight, where a body lies, where a body leaves. Where a lake is still...
Stones by Michel Wing
“Stones” by Michel Wing Virginia walks into the river with stones in her pockets. Smooth stones, river stones, small enough for hands. I drive to the ocean with nothing in my pockets. No name, no wallet, no place to put my hands. She knows the river, she knows why she is there. I am somewhere near the Pacific, a cliff, a highway. Why am I here? Fatigue, that’s all it is. Enough. She writes, I can’t...
Stealin’ from the Dead by K. Bruce Florence
“Stealin’ from the Dead” by K. Bruce Florence Mommy moved in with us about a week ago. Seems the coal company boys is about tired Of the widow women filling up all the houses Along the dusty row moving on up the holler. I had to take her to the doctor today, but When we got back that thievin’ Bobby Ray had Filled his truck with Orville’s tackle box and fly rods. Orville thought the world of his precious gear....
Ace of Pentacles by Roxanna Bennett
“Ace of Pentacles” by Roxanna Bennett What is before you: Party dresses twisting on thin wire hangers. Japanese river stones painted with runes. Pill bottle shaking with baby teeth and a polished brown squirrel skull my brother found in a potter’s field. Lapis lazuli pendant. Curl of grey hair folded in a comic strip. What is behind you: 999 Carlaw Street. $825/month. One and a half bedrooms and a bathroom in...
Lines by Yania Padilla Sierra
“Lines” by Yania Padilla Sierra I cannot see See beyond the fluffy lines of euphoric dismay See past the smoky whiskey Warm in its dismissal of everything. I lick my fingers savoring the bitterness. My work. My work is done. My veins, tired from pumping diesel, From accepting poison, tremble Blue with age. My heart an old horse drawn cart Huffing slowly over A pock marked road. Another line, another vision-...
This Poem Will Refuse to Confess by Emily Regier
“This Poem Will Refuse to Confess” by Emily Regier That I have been drinking far too much wine for years probably. What are the guidelines? Never mind. They keep changing and I keep staying the same. So I have been thinking, if this lawyer thing doesn’t work out I am going to buy a vineyard, with rows and rows of sensational vines— Ripe black fruit, intensely structured, strong on the nose. That full...
Bipolar Girls on a Manic High Are My Addiction by Stephanie Heit
“Bipolar Girls on a Manic High Are My Addiction” by Stephanie Heit look for the bipolar girls sexy if you can get them manic god-like confidence and unlimited energy till they hum rubbing on streetpoles pure libido oozing out crotches a slippery invitation those bipolar chicks will surprise you stripping off clothes without an invitation not even caring what your name is just that you are fuck ready bipolar...
Persephone by Elizabeth Moller
“Persephone” by Elizabeth Moller “I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.” – Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own We are on the road to recovery. No more shock therapy, no more round-the-clock supervision, no more being surrounded by other crazies who got pulled naked and homeless off the streets and wrested into...
Woman Finds Her Face by Lois Marie Harrod
“Woman Finds Her Face” by Lois Marie Harrod when she unfolds the tablecloth and then the stains of her bones, scapula, radius, pelvis, and she realizes she has been thinking about sorrow again. How she doubles it around herself, belly and back. What she can’t change, punctures circling forehead and scalp. It’s cold outside, ice sheets the gouge down by the river, 30-degree drop into hardness, her swollen...
Agoraphobia by Susan Austin
“Agoraphobia” by Susan Austin Don’t paint summer the color of blue flax then the color of goldeneye, paint two broad black strokes a river dammed at the end of the porch, a rhomboid tilted by the tenacious lure of dandelions, and if there must be a figure, paint the figure a triangle woman with childish arms, her hair a chaos of wildflowers, the whole of summer falling through her hands. ...
Freshman by Sue Churchill
“Freshman” by Sue Churchill She stood through the whole club meeting— the officers all announcing themselves–never spoke, as if not entitled to a word or a chair. She was small and slim—fawn-like still, where the seniors, now they were does, and they knew it. She’d had her hair streaked grey, an odd shade for a fawn, the color of ash, or a boat hull-up in the sun. She looked out and away, thinking of...
Indra’s Net by Ji Hyang Padma
“Indra’s Net” by Ji Hyang Padma In Zen, one image we use to describe our interdependence with each other is Indra’s Net. Imagine a net: its horizontal threads representing time, the vertical threads representing space. Where each of these threads meet, there is a crystal which is reflecting, not only every other crystal, but every reflection of every other crystal. In this way, we are intricately connected to...
Grip by Lauren Camp
“Grip” by Lauren Camp Sure, I was afraid of the perfunctory fucks of the person standing in grief with a hand on the subway pole of the 3 train. In my soft life, I don’t hear such a dispatch of crisp pitted slurs. The least thing I have is disaster. After that, exposure. Thugs trump love at these angles and cornices where everyone knows the arc of exhaustion. The train was confronted with her spectacular...
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