Farewell to the Piano
Jessie Ann Morrison
I began taking piano lessons when I was six years old. My teacher, Ms. Lombardo, was a large, lumbering Italian woman who favored flesh colored stretch pants, and whenever she leaned over to turn the page of my sheet music, she exuded that spicy scent that clings to your sweater when you go out for fondue. (more…)
Gimme Shelter
Jotham Burrello
For once my math was spot-on. Which wasn’t so much of a surprise given I was just quoting back the cost of 330-square feet of ship-lap boards to the heir apparent of Sigfrigson Wood Products, henceforth referred to as son-woodsman, a figure father-woodsman had quoted me on the phone. My nimble arithmetic to answer the question, what do you think 330 square feet of ship-lap runs? momentarily impressed son-woodsman. Perhaps he wasn’t dealing with such a rube. (more…)
Personal Ad
Viki Gonia
I’m somewhat recently divorced. People keep bugging me to start dating. It’s annoying. Please stop telling me to start dating. The conversation usually goes like this:
“Are you dating anyone?” says well-meaning friend.
“No,” I say, steeling myself for the inevitable. (more…)
THE AFFAIR: A SCENE FROM THE INFIDELITY SUITE
Greg Baldino
The walk from the bus stop to Natalie and Dennis’ house was longer than Gerard had thought. The October wind sliced at his bare hands as they wrapped around a brown paper bag.
He wished he’d brought gloves. He wished he’d brought his backpack. He wished he knew what the hell he thought he was doing. (more…)
Poetry by John Stocks
With the Fishermen
This morning I strolled to the harbour
To watch the fishermen paint their boats,
Or mend their nets with a spinster’s patience,
Mesmerized by their unravelling. (more…)
Matryoshka Doll
Dan Shapiro
I’m an average guy. I live in the suburbs. I’m lucky enough to have a well-paying job as a computer programmer. I have a loving wife. I have two kids that I love very much, but sometimes they drive me up the wall. I’m a normal guy by all accounts. Oh, but there is one unusual thing about me. I can remember what it was like in the womb. (more…)
Backs
Ira Brooker
“I like your stretch marks,” she says, crisscrossing the space between my shoulder blades with a chilly fingertip. The marks have been there since I was 14 and my pubescent body tried its damnedest to outgrow its own skin. She places her palm flat against my back. “I like that I can see them and you can’t,” she says. “It’s like I know a secret you keep from yourself.” (more…)
Poetry by John Grey
Some People You Don’t Know
Men on horses, in britches,
staunch black caps atop their heads,
shouting “Tallyho”
and riding off behind the hounds
to corner a fox or two. (more…)
Always Have
Patrick J. Salem
She walked in from the bathroom wearing only a t-shirt—her legs, smooth, shiny, and the color of raw cinnamon, rising from the floor to the hem of the shirt that hid the promise of their juncture. (more…)
Agnus Dei
Mark Child
Oh, Lord heap mysteries upon upon upon us, but entwine entwine our work with laughter laughter low and all is well now, hush now, close your eyes and sing hush-a-bye loo lo loo lo lam, sing hush a bye loo lo loo, and our work with laughter loo lo loo. (more…)
Poetry by Paul-John Ramos
Paul-John Ramos
I see and hear it so rarely nowadays,
I tend to forget.
I am not that old, but I can remember
When names meant something. (more…)
Pickled Babies
Eliza Fogel
As writers, we get to learn interesting and trivial facts like the marshmallows in our Lucky Charms are leftover circus peanuts; or that Goethe’s grandmother gave him a puppet theater with which he played furiously, training to be a playwright; or that the game “Seven Minutes of Heaven” started with teenagers in Cincinnati in the 1950s.
In case you didn’t know–the winner in “Seven Minutes of Heaven” has the privilege of choosing any girl in the room, taking her into a darker room, closing the door, turning out the lights and the two can do whatever they please for seven freaking minutes. In fumbling, make-out years this seems like forever. As an adult this feels like a casual greeting. (more…)
Violet Mints: A Short Film By Meghan Lamb
Meghan Lamb’s Violet Mints
Violet Mints from meghan lamb on Vimeo.
Violet Mints: A Short Film By Meghan Lamb
Out Of Order
Ilana Shabanov
Life is messy, however you approach it. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or on a Thorazine drip. Even our cat, Papa, can’t make it through a week without some kind of emotional blip that, more often than not, ends in inappropriate pooping. (more…)
Poems by Kyle Hemming
beautiful girl
if you were a beautiful
girl
all glitter doll & sown up crotch
& i had the moves of usher
or the balls of balboa
neither of us
would have much ado
about sinking in tight pairs.
but since we are no longer
beautiful
& my best five digits are numb
since i can no longer
carry the three of us:
you me & the person
you wanted me to be,
it would be more expedient
to fall into this
trench
& build replicas
of ourselves
with mud fingers & air
having no need
today
for left over
misshapen
balloons. (more…)
Poems by Nick Ravo
AN AMERICAN THANKSGIVING IN FIJI
Texas tourist, sun drunk, kava numb, ‘Bula!’* weary, bored by barramundi, longing for a butterball, plops, ten gallon and Speedo, into an Alka-Seltzer Jacuzzi steam-scented with chlorine and coconut oil, while pinguid waiters, bead buskers and towel boys, straw skirts, orchid ears and palm husk pigment, encircle the bubbly, blue tile kettle like cargo cult cannibals giving thanks for a parboiled and time-beaten, big-mouth cowboy.
* Locally ubiquitous Fijian greeting.
TILT-A-WHIRL
(For Philip Larkin)
Evening fair, kids kissing
Red shell twirls like a top
Lips sticky, tongues swirling
Please, please don’t let it stop
Randy guy, caught staring
Girls sigh and spin away
Unfolding, rail holding
They don’t know what to say (more…)
Poems by Ben Nardolilli
NEED BE WITHOUT
Have to re-do the been stuck,
Gig-less out in Kansas,
With nothing but pre-orders,
I have to face the weather
Grounding every flight,
Cancellations are on-board,
I sit in the palace of bone dry
Cement mixed overhead,
In-house and de-layed
To a place farthest from de-light,
The deep-fry and the de-caf
Keep my stomach peaceful,
No mind and no matter
What the heart is made to face. (more…)
Poems by Rich Boucher
AMARE
I found a stray wish
on my doorstep last night;
its breathing was ragged
and it looked terrible,
fur all matted and soaked
through by the cold rain,
emaciated and scared;
it mewed weakly at me
and I wondered to myself
if this was an abused wish,
if this wish had run away
from a heart that didn’t love it; (more…)
From ‘We Have Such Lovely Parting Gifts’
J. Bradley
Daniel sits at the lunch table, the red and black varsity jacket clinging to his 12-gauge chest. The de Leon county manufactured burrito is closer to his mouth, his teeth, than I am.
Sarah, are you thinking about fucking that boy? The voice rumbles behind my ears. I grit my teeth, gently. Haven’t you had enough, Sarah? Don’t you understand I’m never going away? You are my meat puppet, little girl. The sooner you understand that, the better off you’ll be. I open my palms and slam them against the tabletop three times. The lunchroom chatter trickles, falls to my feet. Daniel stares, mid bite. (more…)
