Archives

FISHSPLAINING BAUDRILLARD by Faye Brinsmead

April 28, 2020

The robo-guppy came in a tank with LED lighting, soothing ocean sounds, and coral reef background wallpaper. Proven stress-buster, Bernie said, handing me the box. There was some study in some journal. After 10 weeks of fish-watching, 75 percent of the subjects flushed their anxiety meds down the john. I took this as a hint he didn’t want to hear any more about writer’s block, impostor syndrome, the library’s overdue loans policy, or anything else connected with my PhD on Baudrillard. He looks sinister, I said. Those mean little eyes. Must be in on the techno-gadget revenge plot. I took

AT LEAST IT WASN’T ME by Andy Spain

April 27, 2020

George arches his back and reaches for the ceiling, fingers fully splayed in morning praise pose. His wife lumbers around him with a groggy scowl. “Great, gonna be late again,” she mumbles and bangs her leg on the bed frame, cursing softly as she clutches her shin. George winces and edges past her. “At least it wasn’t me,” he thinks. Strolling into the kitchen, George rubs his eyes and smiles at his two sons as they scurry around the breakfast table. The younger one waves hello, over-pouring milk into a glass. White cascades race down the cabinet edges and splash

BODY BETRAYAL by Crow Jonah Norlander

April 26, 2020

When I reached the age at which my older friends started to complain about their bodies falling apart, mine really did. My infant son picked up a smooth piece and used it to soothe his gums. My wife palmed another, soft for warmth and whispers. Mom grabbed some with more defined edges to help set up her printer, while one other bit of me barely holding its shape looked on as dad skated around backwards. My boss’s part sat around ignored, waiting to get fired. The chunk of me attending to the Executive Board made the motion to call the

DINNER by Christopher Linforth

April 25, 2020

At that time in our lives, we rose at dusk for the feeding shift. Still in our underwear, we crept downstairs and into the kitchen. Shiny black bugs skittered across the tile floor. The lazy cockroaches remained on the counter and in the tinfoil containers stinking of rotten noodles; a few silvery beetles disappeared into the seal of the refrigerator. In the living room our mother railed at the television, at the caregiver exiting the house. We heard calls for dinner, thuds on the floor, shouts for our dead father. We rubbed crust from our eyes, then surveyed the leftovers

AFTER AUSCHWITZ by Howie Good

April 24, 2020

To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. – Theodor W. Adorno We were taken off the train at night. “What are those bonfires?” I asked. A sarcastic male voice said from out of the dark, “You’ll find out, child.” It felt like I was on a bridge and there were two or three heavy trucks and the bridge was rocking—but there were no trucks. Even cows wondered what was happening. At one point we seemed to be following Beethoven’s footsteps through Vienna. Although democracy was dead, women and young girls were smashing jars of blood on the sidewalk in a

GATSBY EFFECT by Erika Veurink

April 23, 2020

The first time I had pneumonia, I wanted it to be seismic. I wanted it to almost kill me. Being fatalistic felt grown up. I laid in the West Village, drank gin from a jar and stared at where the wall hit the ceiling, the cross-like convergence, forever. “There are crosses everywhere.” That’s what my basketball coach told me once before a game. If I was nervous or worried about a freethrow, I would look for a cross–in the rafters, the painted lines of the court, the referee’s stripes. And salvation meant something. The first time I had pneumonia, when

FIRST KISS AT THE END OF THE WORLD by Chelsea Voulgares

April 22, 2020

Convinced they were the only people alive in their shit California town, Opal and Matt sat together in a coffin in the basement of the funeral home Matt’s family owned. They planned to get as drunk as possible on the top shelf whiskey they’d looted the week before. “Give me the chips. I’m starving,” Opal said. When Matt handed them to her, she caressed his fingertips. He stared at her and scratched his nose. First came the droughts and then the fires. The air had crisped up. All that was nothing compared to what happened to the water, which in

MANDALA by Vallie Lynn Watson

April 21, 2020

He always walked me to my car when I left his house after sex, so stealing his albums was tricky. Not stealing. Borrowing. I started in month two, initially one album at a time, always only the record itself. He’d have to excuse himself to the restroom five or six times an evening, and I’d barefoot across his new carpet to just outside his bedroom, where the shelves began. I would slip an album out of the cover and into my messenger bag, take them home until our next engagement—he usually asked me back within a week—and after sex, put

A EULOGY by Michael Hendery

April 20, 2020

Cynthia B. Hurley, known online as @iBrake4Corgis17, was a well-connected woman visible across the social media landscape. Her beloved Instagram feed totaled 12,574 posts, and she amassed 836 followers after more than twenty-five years of daily engagement with the app. Cindy’s all-time, most-liked post was a photo from October 2031 of her wearing a Davy Crockett raccoon-skin cap, pretending to strangle the eight-foot-tall stuffed grizzly bear in the lobby of the Fern Creek Lodge which garnered 529 likes and spawned dozens of comments, including the expected accolades from her dear friends @tango4one and @winediva77. This post’s popularity surpassed her previous

THE MOON GOES ON by Lydia Copeland Gwyn

April 19, 2020

The tea warms through the paper cup and through my gloves. A tiny island of pleasure in the winter air outside my car. My head is still reeling with the conversations of the night. Friends from upstate New York, who drove here in their Prius. Their gentleman toddler who sat in the backseat through miles of I-81 without one solitary meltdown. The straw-bale guest house they want to construct next summer, where we can all stay when we visit. We being any friend who wishes to make the 12-hour drive. I can’t help but look up because the trees are