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Cliff Saunders
Dancing across the desert with a slender ballerina, I hear a voice whisper sister. The ballerina slips from my embrace and vanishes into a mirror half-buried in sand and cactus flowers. I try to follow, breaking the mirror with my first step. Its glass bleeds like skin. Brother. I hold my breath. Wind blows a…
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Bill Garvey
Toolsheds for Ted & Shelly My neighbor across the cove hauls gravel in a wheelbarrow from the mound at the end of his driveway to the section of lawn where the new toolshed will be built to replace the old. The cove is wide enough that I can’t see the gravel or the wheelbarrow, but…
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Leah Mueller
Conflagration It burns away eventually— projects we spend our lifetimes building, downtown edifices that once stood vigilant for patrons, their heavy doors flung open for the last time, then closed again. Inferno erupts through rooftops, long past midnight, when shopkeepers forget to pay attention. Too late now. Down the block, another structure scorched beyond recognition.…
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Safiyya Bintali
They are all suspended in the past, road trip stops. They’re the places with a soft hum in the ceiling and chrome seats, with skill cranes that nobody changed the prices on, with regulars and the best damn butter pecan ice cream you’ll never taste again. They exist only in a plane filled with afterwards,…
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Bianca Matthews
Ellie’s tracks lassoed the dayroom as she dashed in from the rain. Her mother sat by the windowsill, tending to a handful of her house plants. She had a ceramic mug for watering, and a plastic spoon to dig out pests. There were hardly ever any, but she thought it was a nice precaution. Ellie…