I couldn’t hide under it, there was no way to slip under it
I could barely even slide
a slip of paper under it. I asked him
why we got a sofa so close to the ground and he said
it was more stable that way, I wasn’t sure
if he was talking about the sofa
or the overall atmosphere in our house
or just me.
Author Bio: Holly Day (hollylday.blogspot.com) has been a writing instructor at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and Harvard Review, and her newest full-length poetry collections are Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing), The Tooth is the Largest Organ in the Human Body (Anaphora Literary Press), and Book of Beasts (Weasel Press).
Given our tight deadline for our April theme, we are announcing it a little early so you can get a head start! Submission deadline is April 15th, 2021. See flyer for more details.
They throw us popcorn and moldy bread, then shoo us off the promenade.
Yesterday, they shot a dove, thinking it was one of us.
One of them called me a flying rat. So I dropped him a present in his coffee.
My little way of saying thank you.
Frank William Finney is currently based in the Boston area. He spent 25 years teaching in Thailand (1995-2020). His work has been published in Black Works, Constellations, Millennial Pulp, Silent Auctions, Variant Literature and elsewhere. Work forthcoming in Terror House Magazine and Marathon Literary Review. He has three cats and three bass guitars.
It will linger, this sense of violation, vulnerability, will judder minds through months, years – carousel, warning bell, bombshell, came as blackout, ack-ack, off-the-cuff blindman’s bluff, bourgeoisie fisticuffs. Imagine yourself anonymous, impervious, tintinnabulous, the virus in ennui, fiddle-de-dee, austere among irises. Is it even real? Thunder crack. Zodiac.
Remember easy street, honeysweet, then heat, bleat, cheat. All this metaphor, meteor battering, cudgeling, walloping, a simple scrap of RNA loose among quarks and leptons, lost between matins and vespers. Go ahead, marshal trepidations (life reeks of brimstone). Annihilation is a slavering chimera settling on its haunches, and you, were caught star-gazing.
#AloneTogetherConcentric circles, suns, moons, comets, and Fibonacci sequences – breaths is just a fragile puff of air. Humans are stardust: hydrogen and carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. Knowledge flares like napalm. Wrapped in anxieties, we fester or effervesce. Remember, try to remember, a time you walked unmasked.
Prophesies remain unimaginable. Relax, tip an ear to spherical hum, music of lei-lines swells like summer cicadas. The world seems upside down, but don’t submit to pricking of your thumbs: what comes is neither wicked nor benign; it’s inevitable as yesterday.
Author Bio: Ann Howells edited Illya’s Honey for eighteen years. Her books include: Under a Lone Star (Village Books Press, 2016), Cattlemen & Cadillacs as editor (Dallas Poets Community, 2016), So Long As We Speak Their Names (Kelsay Books, 2019) about Chesapeake Bay watermen, and Painting the Pinwheel Sky (Assure Press, 2020) persona poems in voices of Van Gogh and his contemporaries. Her chapbooks include: Black Crow in Flight, published through Main Street Rag’s 2007 competition and Softly Beating Wings, 2017 William D. Barney Competition winner (Blackbead Books). Ann’s work appears in many small press and university journals.
In our subdivision, we’d never break a fresh loaf of bread together. At night, we keep the blinds closed so that our private lights never touch, denying that the light of day exposes us both.
We are more strangers than neighbors, you a property owner in his right mind, I a deed holder on your left.
Could we ever be brothers instead of bothers, each worried about the other’s age, health, hardening of the arteries and of the heart?
One side of a fence seldom feels the other. No, we can’t straddle a wall and mend it, nor can trust return to tear it down.
Perhaps one day our children could play together.
Robert S. King lives in Athens, GA, where he serves on the board of FutureCycle Press. His poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, including Atlanta Review, California Quarterly, Chariton Review, Hollins Critic, Kenyon Review, Main Street Rag, Midwest Quarterly, Negative Capability, Southern Poetry Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review. He has published eight poetry collections, most recently Diary of the Last Person on Earth (Sybaritic Press 2014), Developing a Photograph of God (Glass Lyre Press, 2014), and Messages from Multiverses (Duck Lake Books, 2020) His personal website is www.robertsking.info.
the trashcan is full, and the dumpster’s so damned far.
It’s late. The TV is static.
I never paid the cable bill,
so after awhile, all the channels
were snowed in like the Tioga Pass in January.
I prefer the static’s zs to silence’s buzzing.
Similar, but I’ve learned to tell the difference.
Last night I left the Frosted Flakes open
when I passed out off the remnants of
all the ‘almost gone’ bottles in the apartment,
so they’re stale now, too soft to enjoy, yet,
I eat some anyway, dry.
Milk goes bad too fast.
Tomorrow I may have to drink the Vermouth straight.
I’m not looking forward to it.
Maybe I’ll put in some applications,
or beg Sean to let me work at Sears again,
or at least donate some plasma.
The first is only two weeks away.
They say Rome wasn’t built in a day,
but the Great Library of Alexandria burned
in one afternoon.
When I tell people that, they say
I’m avoiding the issue, but I say no, no, listen…
It takes a long time to build something great,
but only moments to reduce it to ruins.
Author Bio: Zebulon Huset is a teacher, writer and photographer living in San Diego. He won the Gulf Stream 2020 Summer Poetry Contest and his writing has appeared in Meridian, The Southern Review, Fence, Atlanta Review & Texas Review among others. He publishes the writing blog Notebooking Daily, edits the journals Coastal Shelf and Sparked, and recommends literary journals at TheSubmissionWizard.com.
hands says my Sunday School teacher, we all have to, she says, but we shouldn’t kill our -selves or be reckless so I asked her why life matters so much–it just gets taken away and God’s in charge of everything so however I die isn’t it His fault, and for my questions I got sent out into the hall, it’s lonely here but still quiet and one day I’ll die and my soul will soar to Heaven but solely to be judged. I can imagine Heaven with this kind of hallway leading to the throne of God and there He’ll sit and when it’s my time check the Book of Life for me. He’ll have to squint.
Gale Acuff has had poetry published in Ascent, Reed, Poet Lore, Chiron Review, Cardiff Review, Poem, Adirondack Review, Florida Review, Slant, Nebo, Arkansas Review, South Dakota Review, Roanoke Review and many other journals in a dozen countries. He has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel, The Weight of the World, and The Story of My Lives. Gale has taught university English courses in the US, China, and Palestine.
My snow prints reach a woodland home fenced in by clouds and icicle limbs, a house of brick and window light, an insulated bubble in the darkness.
Surely, warmth glows inside every room. What light leaks out is charity to snowdrift strangers like me.
Would my knock on the door put the lights out, set off the dog alarm? Would I hear feet and voices tangled in a rush to quiet?
To drafts and drifters mothed by window light, most warm homes turn cold backs.
Robert S. King lives in Athens, GA, where he serves on the board of FutureCycle Press. His poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, including Atlanta Review, California Quarterly, Chariton Review, Hollins Critic, Kenyon Review, Main Street Rag, Midwest Quarterly, Negative Capability, Southern Poetry Review, and Spoon River Poetry Review. He has published eight poetry collections, most recently Diary of the Last Person on Earth (Sybaritic Press 2014), Developing a Photograph of God (Glass Lyre Press, 2014), and Messages from Multiverses (Duck Lake Books, 2020) His personal website is www.robertsking.info.
Every autumn day Rose passes by the hot air balloon field in Stillwater, wishing she had enough money in order to go up for just one ride.
Last winter had not just taken a toll on Rose; it took nearly everything she had left. Now, she has a frostbitten toe and a frostbitten heart.
Rose knows that even the happiest golden leaves grow weary when they catch the first gust of winter’s harsh might. Rose knows that if the sun ever decides to go away for good she’ll try to make it promise to come back. Rose knows that if she would have had her life together, her adopted boy Frankie would still talk to her.
Across the air balloon field, sits a pawn shop. A pawn shop is a depressing place when you’ve got nothing to pawn, nothing to sell, and not enough means to buy anything. A job application turns into a hopeless slate the moment you see “Three years of experience needed.”
After staring at her weathered reflection in the pawn shop window, Rose turns around toward the field and observes an unattended hot air balloon. She crosses through the dewy green grass, looks around, and decides to hop into the balloon’s gondola.
The balloon is much bigger than Rose thought it would be. Her eyes widen as she gazes up at the balloon’s bright rainbow colors. Suddenly, a pair of balloon tour guides run toward her, yelling “Stop!”
Rose quickly unravels the ropes from the ground, boosts the propane flame, and takes off into the sky. From this view, the falling leaves look like fluttering butterflies. Rose knows that when she comes down she’ll be in a lot of trouble. So she squints up at the sun and gives the balloon some more power.
Author Bio Zach Murphy is a Hawaii-born writer with a background in cinema. His stories appear in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Mystery Tribune, Ghost City Review, Spelk Fiction, Levitate, Yellow Medicine Review, Ellipsis Zine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Drunk Monkeys, and Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine. He lives with his wonderful wife Kelly in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The first guy I meet on the app calls himself Stuart. He picks me up at the apartment I share with two other girls, one of them Ellie who told me about the app.
“Guys over forty buy you anything,” she said, showing me her new Coach bag, pink with gold accents. Five hundred dollars. If I got a bag like that, I’d return it, but Ellie holds it close like a pet.
Stuart drives a black Mercedes as sleek as his slicked-back hair. He wears a lavender collared shirt tucked into belted tan slacks. Loafers. Corporate casual.
In the spotless car, he asks, “So, Pammy, what do you do?”
I go by Pam, but Ellie said Pammy sounds more innocent. Cute.
At first I think he’s asking about sex. How far will I go?
I must look confused because he adds, “For work. What do you do for work?”
“I work at a law firm on asbestos cases. Mostly filing and depo indexes.”
“Asbestos cases? I thought that was a mid-nineties thing.”
I shrug. “It pays the rent.”
Actually, I’m proud of my job. I’m twenty-two; it’s my first big-girl job. Everyone, even Steve, a partner with a corner office overlooking Biscayne Bay from floor thirty-one at Biscayne Tower, greets me each morning: “Hello, Pamela,” he says, his voice professorial, exacting.
At The Outback, Stuart orders a Bloomin’ Onion, a surprise given it’s greasy and he seems too fit to truck with junk food. He eats slowly, wiping his fingers on the napkin, not licking them like Roger, my ex would do. I follow Stuart’s lead. I don’t double-dip.
Just as I think of Roger, who did not mind my double-dipping, I get a text from him: How are you? Missing you.
Though we’ve been apart for months, he checks up on me at least once a week. I imagine he can see me here with Stuart. He’d ask what the fuck I’m doing.
I put my phone back in my purse.
While we wait for dinner (I order filet mignon), I lean my elbows on the table and clasp my hands.
Stuart touches my hand, unwraps it with his fingers and clasps it, leans forward as if he’s going to kiss my knuckles.
“Pammy,” he says as if he’s trying to soothe me. “You have beautiful hands.”
My scalp prickles, and I suddenly feel hot beneath my armpits, as if he’s told me I have great tits and ass.
He holds my hand until the food arrives. I eat like I mean business (I skipped lunch); he’s impressed.
In his car, he puts his hand on my leg, leans toward me. We kiss. His tongue slides in my mouth. I can smell his woodsy aftershave or body spray. I put my hand on his smooth cheek, so much softer than Roger’s stubble, and let him move his hand under my skirt. I should have worn jeans, but Ellie insisted upon the skirt.
You could say I knew what would happen to me here. Ellie told me at the kitchen table, where we sat across from each other, that you have to put out for these men.
“It’s part of the deal,” she said. “But it’s not so bad. Last night, I had lobster.”
It’s important to add: We barely make rent each month. Meat is a luxury. We box-dye our hair, give each other manicures, eat peanut butter from the jar.
Stuart’s hand goes into my underwear. His fingers are warm. I flinch.
“You okay?” he asks. “Too fast?”
I shake my head, knowing I owe him for the meal, for this escape from the fear I might be homeless someday, like those people crouched like fixtures along the buildings in downtown Miami. I see them during lunch when I take a walk and eat my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. I avoid the staff cafeteria so no one will see me eat.
Stuart moves my hand on his crotch.
“Let’s go somewhere,” I say, surprising myself. “Not here.”
We wind up at a Sheraton downtown, only blocks from where I work.
The room is on the third floor. For some reason, he wants to take the stairs. He holds my hand as if I’m a child who will trip and fall.
In the room that smells as sterile as a hospital, he unbuckles his belt, comes toward me, calling me “girl,” and I realize I think of myself this way: young, as innocent as Ellie told me to be.
“I’m not a whore,” I tell him as he pulls down my skirt.
His brow wrinkles. “Of course you’re not,” he says. “You’re special.”
I should think of Roger, who was always gentle with me—so gentle—for those two years in college. Instead, I think of my mother, who still begs me to move back home (Ohio), where we have a cleaning lady every other week and get take-out three times a week. My second-floor bedroom overlooks our pool with a slide and a deep end.
I won’t tell her that I can’t bear to face my friends, the college grads. I dropped out after two years. Dad expected all A’s and B’s, and I was tired of proving myself.
I feel like I’m proving myself here to this man who could be my father. I’m not a whore, but a lady. Not a child, yet my skin crawls with shame as it did when I stole my mother’s tennis bracelet.
We’re in bed when my phone dings. No doubt it’s Roger, checking on me, missing me, or my mother, urging me back home.
Author Bio- Christine Heuner has been teaching high school English in New Jersey for over two decades. Her work has appeared in Narrative, Flash Fiction Magazine, Philadelphia Stories, and others. It is available to read on her website at christineheuner.com.
