Champ by Steph Post
We go down to the water to find him. Black crabs scurry up trees like rioters dispersed and needle-beaked birds balancing on spindly, backward bending legs eye us in with [...]
Articles by Vending Machine Press
Two Poems by Sarah Sala
POEM AFTER MAN: KITCHEN TABLE 1. I thought here’s a man who owns who he is. Look how natural you move in your animal skin. 2. Paraffin wax burns at a steady rate of 0.1 [...]
two poems by megan kemple
Thanks for the Christmas Present I’ve always preferred thunderstorms to sunny days, Rain on rusted tin roofs, steady as my Mother’s tears, pinging the side of an A-frame [...]
Two Poems by Emily Bernard
TAKE A LEAF FROM MARY’S BOOK Virginal – winding as a wordy tour of a world For thrill rides – a four-minute toast to a man There is a limelight and you are green [...]
two poems by carolyn elias
Animals in Winter A pale yellow sun observes brown trout undulating inside a frozen lake, the red swollen bellies of cardinals cajoling grey squirrels and hares scurrying [...]
Rolling Papers by Audrey El-Osta
it was papercraft + origami, it was incensory + aromatic. You made an art of it when you taught me how to roll my cigarettes in the park. Pinch it, hold the tip, lick, twist [...]
Versions of the Truth by Richard King Perkins II
For J.P. In gym class, I saw his legs five times a week for three years of middle school. Those tortured limbs never stopped scaring me— to my eyes, they still looked as [...]
Chalk outlines of a future self by Jay Sizemore
I will leave the water running while I brush my teeth, because it soothes me. Being wasteful can be soothing. I wonder if every bad habit can be traced to a moment when the [...]
days i can’t carry by anna meister
Road trips are a good way to test compatibility. I know I love him because he doesn’t irritate me all that much even when I’ve only eaten trail mix, my legs folded asleep [...]
Vending Machine Press Issue #9
Photo by – Johannes Huwe The very fine writers for Issue 9 are: He by Lauren Millici Spill by Karie Fugett Four Poems by Justin Hyde When cleaning out the closet I find [...]
he by lauren millici
says I’m a break from routine. Spends the night inside of me, a vacancy at a Motel Six. Fucks without his wedding ring, pays in ripped sheets and apologies. Swears he’s [...]
Spill by Karie Fugett
The day my husband died, April 20, 2010, BP oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico. I was told about the spill weeks later, sometime between the day I buried him and the day our [...]
four poems by Justin Hyde
i haven’t been with his wife in three months as i come out of the showers towel around my waist at the ymca he’s standing at a locker across from me stripping off [...]
When cleaning out the closet I find your needles by Suzanne Richardson
Next to a photo album, a shoebox full of mixtapes, a lock of my hair— is your portal glowing like a neon in a liquor store window: OPEN the metal blinks. The door to your [...]
girls with griffins in their eyes need to wear contacts by Calvero
I saw a pretty girl in a cafe today. She was sitting alone and sipping some kinda coffee drink. She looked like that musty smell in your grandmother’s closet. Except [...]
How were we to know? by Daniel Von der Embse
A small, scented patch of paper is all that remains of the time we lived together above the all-night barbershop on Claremont Ave. You made me ox-tail soup and took care of [...]
Colossal by Ruth Daniell
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Paul ignores the question. Instead, he glances down at the coffee-table that Mel insisted on buying two years ago: polished dark [...]
True Blue by Sarah Vernetti
Amber had almost survived another day. The children scrambled to find their places in line. A whirlwind of backpacks and lunchboxes collided, inexplicably, into two straight [...]
San Juans by Dede Cummings
From here she can see no islands, only a mountain beyond water mostly purple-black and defying the orange-spreading sky. Beginning a new day with a fragment of a dream, she [...]
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