Hybrid
-
Historical Homes of Currituck County
by Jessica Payne
drawing by Charles Henry Alston, 1935–43
We were discussing countertops when our son began to seize in the backseat. I mistook it for something innocent. He was sleeping…dreaming, perhaps. A small twitch of his left leg, like riding a bicycle. “What is he doing” I said. The car became dark as we drove beneath the overpass, when we exited the other side, he was thrashing. You climbed over the console; you repeated his name. I was confused if I should pull over, as if steering the car put us further from the issue at hand.
-
The Elsewhere Oracle
by Michele Battiste
see TOC for art attributions
Green like beginning (leaf primordium)
Green like promise (tangle of snakes)
Green like amulet (scarab’s carapace)
Green like essence (secreted bile)
Green like riddle (hidden katydid)
Green like storm (tornado light)
Green like fortune (emerald vein)
Green like gamble (debtor’s note)
Green like toxin (stem of foxglove)
Green like murk (understory)
Green like monster (from the shoreline)
Green like something soon to come
Oracle
To be superficial is to lack depth, -
Discarded Sermon 9
by Benjamin Bellas
collage by John Bingley Garland, ca. 1850–60
Shhhhhweet sassle-frassle, the good Lord came to me and said, “The only church you need is a freshly sharpened axe and enough breath to reach the forest’s edge.”
2 I bring mine hands and dip them in the marrow of god’s glory, god’s great salivating abundance.
3 I dip mine thighs in spring water, spilled forth from the depths of my mother’s karst body, carried over rock to rock,
-
When I reached the rough manner of this rain, the scrunched petals of these flowers, their fraying edges, I stopped and set down language
by Cory Hutchinson-Reuss
photo by Jeylan Jones
O, O, O:Of ode, incantation, pain, ecstasy, or completion. No paraphrase. The body dissolves on the tongue. Done. The river lapped her up. A kind of conversion. Consummation. A communion or an erasure.
~
Here, now:
I try to write about time and I write about my grandmother’s body.
-
People Are our Greatest Asset
by Leanna Petronella
art by Jen Julian
Éd-téch stárt-úp. Two spondees in a row.
“We need the right people in the right roles,” they say whenever they fire someone.
The thought leader stuffs keywords into a cold-brew keg. The angel investor is already there, incubating the unicorn. See its tiny horn, pink and clear like a jellybean.
I write content in the company’s brand voice. Day after day, I climb inside the copy to join the other writers. We ideate and streamline, tweak to evergreen.
-
Riverside Boulevard
by Kenton K. Yee
art by Odilon Redon, 1882
A barkeep goes to her therapist, says:
I can’t sleep—hypnotize me. So you do and take her
to Central Park Zoo and fall crazy in love.
She cuts tail so you’re on your couch
rifling through web pages pricing colonoscopies.
