Non-Contest Submissions: “Desire” (Issue 75) UPDATE: We have re-opened non-contest submissions for fiction, nonfiction and poetry for the next two weeks, until Saturday, November 10th, 2018. Submit! Contest Submissions: “Desire” (Issue 75) Submission Period: September 24th – November 5th Finalist Judges: Jo Ann Beard – Nonfiction Contest Nicole Walker – Flash Prose
Read More
2026 Memory Contest Winner Braced Against the Current Flies circle my cheeks as we drifton rafts in the leaf mantled pool,eyes squinting or shut against the sunand growling thunderclouds.We are trying to
2026 Memory Contest Runner Up Dil Soz— the one whose heart burns for otherswhen witnessing their pain.Harder than a rockmore fragile than a rose. In the beloved’s absencelove fades and grows— I
Siri Pleas Not I, not tonight. Not even halfway homewhen this notification brakes your black bikebefore the lichened gate of the communitylabyrinth— where now, we mustusher each other down the same trepid
Pop Rocks My sister and I are playingoutside. She opens a small packof rock candy. She grins then pours some inmy hand. She whispers,“Close your mouth.Don’t chew.” The sound of rain in
ㅤㅤㅤYou are plum blossoms,fruit to come. You are cream-ㅤㅤㅤfilled, dream-spent. We are eggand egg, ovum and ovum, open-ㅤㅤㅤmouthed. Open-mouthed. Youare calendula and roseㅤㅤㅤwatering my tongue. Youare brow in pain, bitten-ㅤㅤㅤflesh at the
Eyes towards the skyㅤㅤㅤit’s hard to discern what’s realWhen all is bathed in stardust It covers your skinlike the glitter gel you covered your body inat twentyㅤㅤㅤㅤsweating out your traumaon the dancefloor
I’ve seen them dart among the cattailsat the slightest shadowlike commas scattering over the surfaceof a page. And I have sadly senta few of them to their deathslast summer, when I ranthrough
Shellac Cicadas sing:The world doesn’t want us! Nobody wants us!I thought chewing felt the same.I am finding myself to be stranger and more fragile, like a dog that bites first.Bad dogBad godblame
free verse copper wires gnawed bareas thick as a little finger ready for scrapthat’s the best of what’s in my poems and in additionbreathover the coal cathedral of a half-ruined minedaytime moments airy
Up yonder, the sky yawns openwide in a downpour. I suck greedy on the silken stem of one last God-white honeysuckle blossom & I watch the rain close in. The hot aircrackles