From the neck up, it has all the charm of your high school principal, with his resting expression of placid WTF.
Read it in MacQueen’s Quinterly
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“Roseate Spoonbill” by Ann Quinn
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“epigenetics or: hope for easeful adaptation” by nicole v basta
a sparrow lands on the barbed wire
and drops like a stone
how many generations until
we learn to pick the post insteadRead it in Booth
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“AITA: Am I the Asshole For Not Walking Away From Omelas” by Paul Crenshaw
I CANNOT BELIEVE ANYONE WOULD EVER STAY IN OMELAS, they type in all angry caps on social media, and “Sorry I didn’t respond to your email,” they meme, “I was walking away from all the assholes in Omelas.”
Read it in Reckon Review
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“Speech Lessons” by Joy Baglio
Now, you walk around the circle and inspect your nine-year old coin collectors. You hand out thumb-sized scrolls of paper, secret messages, to each. You are the commander of this invading army, this fidgeting assemblage.
“Your target,” you say, staring down at the frying pan. You say something about the marriage of motion and words, the importance of body awareness when speaking. You say, “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sick sheep,” and flick a penny in a perfect underhanded arc into the frying pan. “Words and motion together,” you say.
Read it in Ghost Parachute
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“The Train That Runs Behind Our House” by Eric Scot Tryon
Hannah and I weren’t home when the man stepped in front of the train that runs behind our house. But there was the back of our fence and top of our apple tree on the 10 o’clock news. There was the dusty wash, the riverbed rock and dry chaparral we traversed on sunset walks. And beyond the newscaster with perfect hair, there were the dozen little yellow flags, scattered about like confetti. Evidence flags. Markers for pieces to collect. Hannah had seen enough. She clicked off the TV and sat down to cry for the man who stepped in front of the train that runs behind our house.
Read it in Monkeybicycle
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“A Language of Dissent” by Holly Day
It has become imperative to create a new language
that our overlords won’t understand, something beyond
teen slang or street jive, something not so much catchy pop culture
but a lexicon suited for concise planning and destruction.
These words must make their way into newspapers
leaflets nailed to telephone poles, flashed at the bottom of television adsRead it in A-Minor
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“Traffic” by Jon Lavieri
I’m trying to believe
this sudden permission
to feel someone else’s joy
will be enough to make me forget
where I’m going and fall in love
with this car crash of being aliveRead it in Anacapa Review
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“Understudy” by Lance Larsen
I’m no medic or deep-trauma therapist,
just a washer of milky cups and keeper
of the thermostat. He who retrieves junk mail
from the freezer, frozen peas from the dryer,
he who hides pills in cherry yogurt and spoonsthem into her mouth. Also a voodoo sage
Read it in the North American Review’s Open Space
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“Superman Flying Over a Nude Beach” by Pedro Ponce
There was a new joke at school. One boy would approach another, his hand raised level with his chin. “What’s this?” he would ask, palm down, skimming the hand flat through the air. If I squinted hard enough, I could see the middle finger curled down and folded against the meat of the palm.
Read it in the Journal of Compressed Creative Arts
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“The Sunfish” by Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco
I read they put the sunfish
back when it gets
stressed. I read that it can weigh overa thousand pounds. That it
is docile. Dowe know what docile means, I
sometimes think,as strategy.
Read it in The Lake
A Quiet Root 