Issue 35

  • Issue 35,  Nonfiction

    Gravity

    by Lisa McMaster

    photo by Peter Anderson on Unsplash

    It’s a dark November evening and the rain slants across the driveway and backyard. My mom and I have just returned from my piano lesson and I am in a good mood. I am singing something silly when I see my dad sitting at the dining room table, his face drawn tight, eyes down. I keep singing because he often doesn’t smile, or say hello, when I walk into the room. When he tells me to stop, his voice is sharp and I assume I have done something wrong.

  • Issue 35,  Poetry

    Woman Encounters Haystack

    by Erika Mailman

    photo by Adrian Bancu on Pexels

    It was from another century
    It made her feel broken
    it hissed of cows and ploughshares

    Men who didn’t have time
    to talk to their womenfolk
    who were sick with shame

    if they burned dinner for
    no one ate and the cow
    was dishonored.

    The straw spoke
    of how night would claim
    them all if the woman

    told her desire to make art,
    of her dispute with the cast
    iron stove,

  • Issue 35,  Poetry

    Aubade For The Sous Chef At Cochon

    By Nikki Ummel

    photo by Wicdhemein One on Pexels

    You are Orion and I am pulled close,
    to lick the salt from your ears.
    WWOZ whispers morning news
    as my fingertips chase freckles,
    play connect-the-dots, search
    your kitchen-scars for constellations
    as the sun rises.

    I like the feel of you.
    Here, in the damp darkness
    of your shithole apartment,
    the handprints of others
    on the wall, above your bed.

    I’m not the first hostess
    you’ve hunted—there is
    a bottle of Wet Head,

  • Hybrid,  Issue 35

    BETWEEN THE ACTS

    by Elinora Westfall

    art "Untitled Portrait" by Elinora Westfall

    Act One

     

                 Royal Court, London

    Front row, middle seat tickets, for The Cane

    Red velvet chairs

    And I can’t see my feet, in the dark, but I can hear the sound

    Of theatre

    Of the side stepped shuffle between seats, and sweets and everyone else’s coats on the arms of chairs

    Of whispers and hushes and the creak of Victorian floorboards between the clink of wine glasses

  • Issue 35,  Poetry

    When I Was Young, My Future

    by Michelle Hulan

    photo by Tala Dursun Marko on Unsplash

    When I was young, my future
    was as sure as static on the screen.

    There were backs arching. A woman’s hand
    reaching past shadows. Torsos

    tethered to no discernable plot. I felt my way
    toward desire blindfolded in a hum

    of bees. Sometimes I bang my fists against sheet metal
    just to hear its sound hit walls and return as echo—

    My past always has the last word,
    but I never met a future I didn’t like.

  • Issue 35,  Poetry

    And If We’d Kept Our Daughter, We’d Have Named Her Lille

     By Brent Schaeffer 

    art curtesy of The University of Chicago on Unsplash

    When we got off the train in Paris it was late.
    Gare Du Nord looked like a Monet: black
    and gray with strokes of gloss. We were lost.
    Athena and I slipped into backpacker backpacks and set out
    across the city. I had to piss. Like ugly Americans
    we stopped at McDonald’s, my ankles killing me,
    … We were broke. We took another train north,
    hoping it’d be cheaper than Paris. It was.
    We got a room for a week—fucked and ate kebabs
    from a taco truck thing—just like L.A.—
    but colder and somehow romantic.