Issue 35
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Morning Sex
By Eileen G’Sell
photo by Marlene Leppänen on Pexels
I didn’t hear you say Charles De Gaulle and thought you meant the mayor.
It’s true I held your hand like a man. Your fridge, clean as alien
spacecraft, makes me want to mess your mattress. Lie back now while I
pretend to be appalled at the things you think about saying. I love that you
love the name “Lina Bembe”. -
Memories of Drinks Past
by Michael Cannistraci
It was 1979 in Los Angeles. I was twenty-two, struggling as an actor, and struggling in general. My dreams of stardom had fizzled after graduation from college; aside from taking expensive acting classes, I wasn’t performing anywhere.
I got a job going door to door, recruiting men for a government vasectomy study. The work was easy, but the pay was lousy, and I had to buy my own gas. My girlfriend suggested I try bartending to make a living after she observed a bartender in a funky, dive surfer bar in Venice Beach counting a wad of cash on one of our dates.
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The Docket
by Shira Dentz
photo by Benni Fish on Pexels
This landing strip has seen many falls—
shoehorn soft gliding into a shoe
or curdling against the pressure
presence of time drifting
then landing a perfect minimalist
geometry otherwise known as
settled like home.This landing strip has seen many falls—
shoehorn left shapely into a shoe or
curdling against the pressure all
charisma of time drifting then
landing a turning minimalist geo-
me-try otherwise known as
settled some mummy of home. -
“Morning Snow” by Cho Ji Hoon Translated from the Korean by Sekyo Nam Haines
photo by Gerard Franciosa
Wouldn’t you know
without opening a window,
the snow has fallen
on Chun Mountain
The delicate bulb of daffodil
would have
known it first.
In the deepening night
by the lamplight
worries swarmed densely like butterflies.
In my dream
as the snow fell on me
I walked alone on the snow blurring meadow. -
Misused
By Riley Anspaugh
photo by William Santos on Pexels
The word “albeit”
has been in my mouth all day,
rolling on my tongue
like a Gobstopper. The sun
is warm, albeit slowly self-destructing.
Hummingbirds are beautiful,
albeit too fast to see. I’m in love
with this girl, albeit
she never looks at me.
I’m stuck using albeit
in all my sentences,
albeit I don’t believe
I’m using it correctly.
I mean, when is the last
time you ate a good meal
off a dangling chandelier? -
A Love Supreme: Imagining my father’s madness
by Natasha Williams
photo collection of the author
The kitchen was thick with cigarette smoke and A Love Supreme, his favorite Coltrane. I danced with scarves wrapped around my undersized torso, one tied gypsy-like around my head. Dime-store clip earrings dangled at my neck. I twirled to his lap, where he slumped over his coffee cup at the dining room table, and pulled on his hand to join me. Anchored to his chair by something weightier than our life could contain, he chuckled, looking into his cup, waiting for the “holy” calling only he could hear.
