Issue: 2017

                                     for Les The wood is entered from a settled place, its darkness a murmur that hangs like threads of time, vines indescribably local yet never seen before. A pond, perhaps vernal, seems to hold everything I do not kno … Continue Reading

I gather elderberries by the river. Last year, these purple-black fruits rotted on my counter – I was in the ER, clenched with pain and cold under ten blankets and by the time they opened me there was a liter of blood to take, one slender branch and th … Continue Reading

Cool like the Virginia waterfalls his eyes undressed her and yet, his stiff smile demanded such reverence from her. Rust-gold like the hawkweeds of summer, his eyelashes, cast fringed shadows on his cheeks whenever he closed his eyes… freckles floati … Continue Reading

(after Pablo Neruda) and it happens that I am tired of beauty shops. The smell of hair dye makes me break into hives, a sort of hysteria. Hysteria is an old-fashioned, Freudian word. Freud is out-of-fashion, and that is a relief. I want fashion to be o … Continue Reading

Grandma placed her tiny, gnarled hand on my face. Her skin was soft and crinkly like tissue paper as she rubbed my cheek. She looked at me with a familiar sweetness that slackened my rigid posture. Even as my 6-foot frame dwarfed her petite body, I was … Continue Reading

I’m contemplating the height of your window and the thickness of the skin on the inside wall of your thumb. I cannot quite place the growth of your smile as it expands over rocky valleys and causes fossils to be reborn. I am swimming in a pool of jelly … Continue Reading