While Drinking Sangria

by | May 8, 2019 | Poetry, Web Exclusives

I measure your wingspan. We split a pitcher of thick sangria. You say the circus stole your identity, wiped you off the grid and, in exchange, gave you rust-feathered flappers. Wings made of dog bones and plastic flutes, lamp posts and tin foil. You resemble an angel...

Genie in Pieces

by | Apr 24, 2019 | Prose, Web Exclusives

Father is the name for what guards the front door. The world outside is full of noise. A truck, a lawnmower, a dog, and then another. Someone shouts, someone slams a door. Always someone’s anger sneaks in through the cracks. He will not subject his family to this. Not...

‘Mus Maximus’ and ‘Venice’

by | Apr 10, 2019 | Poetry, Web Exclusives

Mus Maximus In Pompeii we didn’t distinguish rats from mice. Just mus maxiumus or mus minimus. We didn’t know, back then, that rats tend neverto be without their kin—sure, mus maximus might eattwo of her litter, but she would neverleave the nest nippleless. I know...

Avenue

by | Mar 27, 2019 | Prose, Web Exclusives

The doctor delivers the diagnosis. He tells Gulisa, “It could be worse.” He names two diseases more terrible than her own. Gulisa understands this and is disappointed in herself for not feeling more comforted. She accepts a few pamphlets from him, information about...

graverobber’s ballad

by | Mar 13, 2019 | Poetry, Web Exclusives

bifurcating like a heart would/night scatters into pieces/reassembled like a girl should/be I tug the laces/of my boots and hold the shadows/tight against my ribs/double double oil and meadow/bubble burning cribs/collecting all the dead men’s bones/scattered in the...