(redux)
We're taking off for a few weeks to enjoy the rest of the summer. We'll be back September 14 with some new stories and poems. In the meantime, send us something to read. We're happy to consider it while we're away. Thanks for reading. Thanks for writing.
Steady as a sunrise, he poured the oil into her ear and tipped her head in the opposite direction. Within seconds, a large, lethargic bug came tumbling out of that greasy river. William grabbed its slick body, smashed it to the floor, and crushed it with the heel of his boot. “And stay out!”
...and the mermaids with delicious songs, the skiffs,/ the water wry and satisfying. We watched the coast unfurl,/ birch bark to fish scales, opals, pearls —Is King Alexander alive?
Wendy, vertical in the horizon,/ finger-texts to vulnerable hearts/ helpless words of sympathy/ that isn’t sympathy at all/ in a coked-up dream/ of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
...lying on a rock with your legs splayed/ as chill Aegean water drained/ like fingertips and drops of eyesight/ from your breasts, slumping sideways/ yet young and firm enough to reach/ like innocent Icarus to the sky...
The smile was widening in real time. She was laughing at him. He even heard her say that it served him right, not to have another smoke for as long as he lived. The bitch was in her element and he had no control over any of it.
...you’ll pretend my hipbone is your french fry. your plastic bag. you’ll still be flapping (of course, you’re always flapping) and with the branches of my fingers in the soft down of my body, i’ll throw the curtain open...
Now, my husband’s got the look,/ the you’re-just-jealous kind of look/ when I tell him the fate of that stuffed giraffe,/ & my husband, who hardly ever sees perspective,/ who says “Dickinson” in that mocking voice (“ah, yes, her”)/ places a hand on my knee, defends my brother & says,/ “He's just lonely.”
That bastard Lyle, he said, he’s just come and collected the Chevy. Him and two big guys. He and Audrey have apparently contested the will. It wasn’t signed. It wasn’t witnessed. It ain’t worth shit. I’m warning you bro, he’s coming for your balloon.
...and I never minded getting up early and in the shop they’ve got an old vending machine for dollar-a-beer beers for the employees and the other guys taught me to say pinche guero but I know that one and they laugh at how I say it so I say que onda motherfuckers and they laugh louder and I can stay here a while, yeah, I can hack this...
REVOLUTION JOHN. 