Issue 35
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The Moment You Cease Motion, and Into the Feathery Lightness
by Michele Rappoport
art: "El mundo de Anita” by Juan José Clemente
The Moment You Cease Motion
A person lives within an inch of evaporation. Every night you die, skin and nails soft. The heart, that feverish bayonet, pierces the practical bearing of clearness. Ice envelopes the wound. Blood loiters, wet and exposed. A vein pulses like a charm more perfect than dust in winter. And in the skin, the perfect quietude of a body close to completeness. _______ I wrote this piece with words found in The Military Handbook &
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Sestina for Disinheritance
By LP Patterson
photo by Alev Takil on Pexels
The world has moved on from its earring,
from its bells, far away silver and gold
that impose, intractably, this burn
in sunlight, the hissing sound and mettle.
The world has moved on as a traveler
that reaches the deepest recesses of its mark.
Disinherit the world, disinherit the markof your crystal knife fashioned in an earring.
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Petty Criminals
by Drew Anderla
photo by Arry Yan on Unsplash
There was a shitty bar I used to go in the East Village to that was demarcated only by a red neon rooster in the front window. Before 11, there would be disco music playing and red lights illuminating the space, but rather than dancing, or drinking, or even making eye contact, men would just pool around the perimeter of the room obsessively checking their cell phones. It was decidedly less like a bar at this early hour than it was like the DMV, with everyone anxiously waiting for their number to be called.
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The Backbone of the World
By Cecily Winter
art "El Salto de Rolando" by Juan José Clemente
IN THE BEGINNING loomed the gray above our heads sometimes obscured by mists of rain and snow, while across the ice steppe lapped cold saltwater from which we speared fish small and large
FOR SURVIVAL we wore leathern skins and fish scales strung with sinew even in our snowdomes where we huddled close and moaned the wind music of this land
WHEN WITHERING DEATH ASSAILED US we sharpened long bones to capture an ice floe and launched it bearing the corpse,
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Playing Baseball with a Pocket Knife
By Christopher Citro
photo by Allen on Pexels
Raised by retired parents I have that, why bother I'll sit picnic tabled and watch the clouds go by. The battle, that position worked out, I see through it all. I tear packets, toss the seeds across the open ground. The sky can do the rest. This boy burying plastic Chewbaccas between beechnut roots, my boy. Sit beside me, not too close. Here's how you open the knife, straighten the short blade, pull the other to an angle, balance it between your legs and with a forefinger's soft tip,
