Archives | X-R-A-Y

THREE TRIPTYCHS WITHIN A TRIPTYCH, OR: SPINACH PIE by Benjamin Niespodziany

June 9, 2021

a multi-level triptych [1] Woodsman’s Lint-Licked Pockets after Leśnik, the Slavik forest deity [a] Woodsman protects the forest by writing messages into the rocks. Messages in clock talk Woodsman doesn’t understand. Messages in dirt. In fur. In bark. Important forest, he writes. Formative forest. Former corner, cornered form. [b] With beard of grass and vine, Woodsman wears skin of reed and tree and string. His stomach is a lake of fish. The torch he carries bares a blue flame. It assists in guiding his moon, in practicing the magic of being alone. Silence hangs like a stranger

AT A LEMON-COLORED HOUSE ON CALLE D by Ray Ball

June 7, 2021

The day before Myradis Guzmán died, the tropical sun boiled off some of the rainwater that shrouded and smoothed the cracks in Havana’s sidewalks. She sorted grains of rice and hung out laundry under the watchful eye of a statuette of Yemayá. She chatted with neighbors on her way to ETECSA. When she arrived, she secured her place as la última and slipped into a wisp of shade to wait her turn. After her heart suddenly stopped, her body remained in her house for over a week, while her brother Yordani navigated bureaucratic tapestries of red tape. Waiting was so

“HANKS HAND” by Michael Seymour Blake

June 5, 2021

GENIUS by T.J. Larkey

June 4, 2021

I’d been a process server my whole life. Well not really. I remember my dad driving me around a lot after school, leaving the car running as he knocked on strangers’ doors. At seven seeing his Vietnam Vet fearlessness for the first time, ducking a crackhead wielding a broken lawn lamp. At fifteen working in his house/office, and at seventeen feeling so lucky to have a job that didn’t leave me smelling like grease. And at nineteen using the savings to move away to California. So it really only felt like it. Like I’d never done, and wouldn’t ever do,

HUNGER PAINS by Lindy Biller

June 3, 2021

Eating nacho-flavored cauliflower chips is like eating the crisp skeletons of dead leaves. Still, there are far worse things I could be doing with my mouth. I sit at a drop-leaf table, grinding the so-called chips between my teeth, and you streak around our apartment, rabbit-like. You’re terrible at acting cool, aloof, whatever you want to call it, and I will always love this about you. You are tender to the bone. “Why am I doing this, what if I fuck the whole thing up?” you say, although you’re not really asking. I stand up, ignoring the subtle aftertaste of

SOUR by Wilson Koewing

June 2, 2021

To escape the midsummer heat, I ducked inside a bar specializing in sour beers on the fringes of Five Points in Denver. I ordered from the happy hour menu, drank sour pours then had my debit card declined. “I tried it nine times,” the shaggy hair bartender said. “Try it again.” “Won’t go through.” “I don’t know what to tell you.” Another bartender, one of those effortlessly beautiful women who always seem marooned in restaurants, came over. “Nice ink,” I said, noticing an eight ball on her wrist. “Do you have another card?” she asked. “I don’t,” I said. “Where

NOAH’S MILLENNIUM SOLILOQUY by Maggie Nye

May 31, 2021

I am building a space ark. I have the raw materials to begin. Many can be salvaged from the junkyard, which is the humble throne room of heaven’s inheritors. Not that I believe in metaphors. We are all best served speaking simply, plainly, and with a cube of bullion under our tongues. I have collected 130,000 pounds of aluminum rather easily. It took the better part of a century, but I am blessed with dreamless sleep all nights except Sunday, when I drown myself again and again in my indoor jacuzzi until my wife prepares the coffee. To make a

SALAD GIRLS by CK Kane

May 28, 2021

I don’t want my mom to die not because I like her, but because she’ll be the nastiest ghost. Unrelenting in death. I just know it. I pull her boots off like always. Using both hands, I make an ugly face and lean my body trying to pull. She moans like always. Whenever she’s not on a horse she’s in this bed. Crumbs of caked mud and crap get on the white sheets as the second boot finally gives and I almost fly across the room. Still in her breeches and a turtleneck, she pulls the covers over her save

SMALL SMALL GOAT OR 羊鬼泡面 by Emily Lu

May 27, 2021

I was the most vocal opponent of article 94.1, a new hospital by-law permitting employees to outsource labour to ghosts. I wrote to the department head an ostentatious but sincere email defending the sanctity of patient care. They referred me to another committee, started a new subcommittee, requested further submissions of appendices, etc. The next day, I went to find the ghosts. When I remembered the small small goat, it was a month later. I opened the fridge expecting death. It was standing on a side dish where I last saw it, unaffected by the cold. Its eyes unblinking. My

THE SOUND OF VIOLENCE by Ryan Norman

May 26, 2021

Usually the orchard was all light, sunburn cooled by a welcome breeze, but not that day. Fog crept up from the river and swallowed every tree in its path, whetting its appetite for the too short grass that cut like blades, soaking the cicadas’ song. I sat on a cold cinder block and watched my boyfriend wash his car, questioning why he would shine it on such a gloomy day, but daring not to say it aloud. His phone rang and I looked at myself in the shiny apple red door. Winked. Shot some finger guns. Fell to the floor.