Issue 36
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How to Become a Mother
by Grace Sikorski
At birth, possess the requisite primary sex organs—one uterus, normally shaped; two ovaries, holding a million or so eggs, which will die off at a rapid rate with every passing year of your life. Tick tock. Tick tock. Start the clock.
Wear scratchy dresses and aching head bows. Wail as they pierce your soft, soft lobes with diamond studs. Play with baby dolls, kitchen sets, plastic irons, bangles, and glitter. Bask before the light bulb of your Easy-Bake Oven. Serve Ken sugar-spice cookies as he drives along the coast in his convertible beach cruiser.
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Prestidigitation
by David Prather
The first time I saw magic
it was in a deck of cards, easy
as plucking hearts right out of the air.
I believed in things like Santa Claus
and God. I tried to find mysteries
in smoke and mirrors, secrets
my father kept in his pockets
and under his hat. He taught me
how to trick a fish from water,
refract the light. The next time
was a vanishing act—my grandfather
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If You Cry Hard Enough, God Will Answer Your Prayers
by Jae Eason
How many times have I prayed in wooden pews &
the echo of my voice answered?They say: drink this,
eat thisand the enzymes in my stomach learn how to break
down Jesus’ blood & Jesus’ body and if you recite
your dinnertime prayers, God will give you food and
let you eat it.And you will pray & we will continue to pray.
Hail Mary, full of grace
you will recite these words – they’ll web inside your
throat until the Book has stifled you. -
After Thirty Minutes, Dark Adaptation Occurs
by Emily Townsend
The sky is rarely clear during spring
in Willamette Valley, and tonight
there is a star coruscatingthrough the cloudless canvas, as if to say,
I am still here, please don’t forget I exist
Earlier, daffodils were drunk with rain.I am your backpack as you fall
asleep. I watch this asterism burn
and dim like a stagnant plane, fixated
yet moving as our planet orbits. I assumethis is the only thing alive in the dark.
You snore loud enough to wake up
the horizon, -
Broken Glass and Other Sharp Objects
by Genevieve Creedon
Paring knife meets plastic meets
index finger amid kitchen preparations
for tomorrow’s chicken pasta salad lunch:red dyes soft fabric in dim lights
during efforts to contain the stain,
blood meets counter meetstongue and then water, washing it away.
But blood washes better than brooding
erupting in tomorrow’s chicken pasta salad lunch:recollection, rising, unleashed,
in the corner of the living room,
a wandering eye meets cardboard meetsboxed remnants of a long past attempt
to learn to draw—the penciled contours
of life, -
Ark
by Alex Starr
We are ever
ything exploring
itself ever
y spelunking
satellite
unwrapping of
a gift
discover
y of calculus
quarks crème
brûlée
a lei
around a neck
introspection
specks
Alex Starr is a writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Alex's poems appear in Vallum, Three Rooms Press: Maintenant, Lunch Ticket, Ignatian Literary Magazine, La Piccioletta Barca,