Issue 37
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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.
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Here, now:
I try to write about time and I write about my grandmother’s body.
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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.
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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.
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Growing Up with a Low Rent Robin Williams
By Simon A. Smith
photo by the author
You never told anyone the whole story about your dad. You let most people think he was little more than a kooky horndog or dirty sailor. It was better for both of you. He got to see himself as the comedian he always wanted to be, and you got to pretend you weren’t dying inside every time he told another unsettling joke. That way, your friends felt it was harmless to laugh at all his unsavory antics. Like when you were at the pizza joint downtown,
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Sand Wall
By Laura Schadler
art by Caspar David Friedrich, 1817
I.
The woman’s recurring dream found her online dating, tapping ineffectually through a glitchy and pixelated app. In each subsequent dream, she feared it had been too long to respond to a message from the previous night.
The woman had married at a strange in-between time when almost no one online dated.
In a second dream, a small panther prowled along with that sultry shoulder swivel, as if on its way to kill something. She often woke distraught.
