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Grocery List by Elizabeth Bolton

There is, here in my hand, a small blue rectangle of grocery list like the looping invitation to a banquet that awaits and my finger pads press it rumpled and wet. You step, [...]

August 21, 2017

Morning in Portland and other poems by George Franklin

Orange peels on the plate, broken curls Of skin, scent of trees from Morocco, Spain, or somewhere else, somewhere other Than here on this smoke-gray morning in Maine. The [...]

August 21, 2017

Sea Shanties by Alicia Bones

1. Couple years ago, I bought a boiled crab off a man on the pier. I’d just started eating it when someone shouted, “Jerry’s fighting Bob!” Jesus, someone! I thought. [...]

August 14, 2017

When the sun is close and other poems by Miriam Calleja

What do you do if you’re that close to the edge, And you don’t know how you got there? How do you feel when, Just by chance, You’ve inched away from the never-ending [...]

August 14, 2017

I’ve Been Interrupted Here Before by Jenya Doudareva

Crowd pours onto the pavement like a viscous liquid. Swallows yesterday’s residue – traces of discarded food, pocket garbage, piss stains – with no hesitation. [...]

August 7, 2017

Aspen Matis by Ted Guevara

Throw that cane away; let it bounce and belittle itself among the down rocks. And please don’t look back to cradle it like Moses’ staff, its blackness unworthy of [...]

August 7, 2017

Shake Loose by Claire Stamler-Goody

Adam used to love his phone. He carried it everywhere and every time it buzzed, he melted. He fidgeted whenever the battery ran low. The phone, which had three different [...]

August 2, 2017

In Retrospect and other poems by Z.M.Wise

I should have looked both ways. I should have seen your forceful wishes to confuse me into mental paralysis. If I should dribble, apologize and disconnect from any form of [...]

August 2, 2017

A Thing From Spain by Ashlie Allen

They know I am not fluent in English, but still approach me. “Why are your eyes so black? Why do you look like you’ve been in the sun all your life?” My mother told me [...]

July 27, 2017

From The Book of Smaller by rob mclennan

 Postcard to Gil McElroy A sketch. An apparatus of mish-mash. Salutations. Systematic checks. My legs were cold. Mezzanine. My other body. Years apart. Geometries of [...]

July 27, 2017

Homeboy Chicken Weasel and other poems by Kevin Ridgeway

says he got her digits 13th-stepping at an AA meeting that he was going to try them out after he phones his sponsor tonight, ready to fuck her brains out in place of heroin [...]

July 20, 2017

Groceries and other poems by WK Lawrence

Your passing wind captures me Gently mistakes me for another cold heart Like the ones you find in the frozen foods section Sorting through processed fish Comparing prices Or [...]

July 20, 2017

How to Survive Heartbreak and other poems by Courtney LeBlanc

Acknowledge the wrecking ball in your chest, the slow heaving back and forth as it crashes against your heart. Brush your teeth but avoid the mirror. Drape it with black [...]

July 16, 2017

Drinking your Lye by Nicholas Olsen

I see pieces of you everywhere I go, smell hints of your perfume in drafts of wind as I walk down this old block trying to assemble the remnants of my past. It feels like you [...]

July 16, 2017

Observer Effect by Jenya Doudareva

Sparrows flying close to the ground means that it will rain. Sparrows bathing in sand means that it will rain. Is that how it goes? The meteorologist on TV says that there is [...]

July 11, 2017

Sloppy Brain by Ashlie Allen

I’m not a ghost, but you touch me as if you can’t feel anything, expression absent of fascination, hands still like there is no meaning to my skin. I shiver a lot because [...]

July 7, 2017

The wine label as poetry, 2 by Lindsey Thaden

  JUAN CARLOS CUCHILLO FAMILY FARMS Rico Red Reserve Tinto Fino SONOMA COUNTY 2016    It started with a boy and a grape.   In 1968, young Juan Carlos Cuchillo [...]

July 4, 2017

Who Leaves Sprinklers on During a Flood by Alex Antiuk

I put god on a pedestal during the 5 days I spent in a white shack on the beach. On the 6th day god fell. It began with a compulsive annoyance, “Do you want to go on a [...]

June 30, 2017

Austerity Measures and other poems by Addison Bale

without for an abscess conversations after ellipses a side-long glance flouting its prolonged piss burn a bashing spring leaves a cortisone subscription opportunistically / a [...]

June 26, 2017

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In the spotlight

I WANT TO BE LIKE CIRCE POISONING THE SEA by DEIRDRE COYLE

by Vending Machine Press in Flash Fiction

  When the god, Glaucus, fell in love with the sea nymph, Scylla, and Scylla rejected him, Glaucus went to the witch, Circe, for help. Of course he couldn’t take [...]

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Past Contributors

  • Four Poems by Justin Hyde

    December 1, 2014

    after your best friend’s wedding we stood naked in front of the hotel mirror arms behind each other’s backs marveling at [...]
  • Six Poems by Josh Jordan

    December 29, 2016

    The Soul Undimmed In quietude you whisper upon the wind, reminiscing upon an afflicted past Outwardly your soul appears [...]
  • Crying in Cars with Ghosts by Maggie McEvoy

    March 9, 2017

    Footsteps follow me in the parking lot, looking back I see only dead leaves turning in the breeze —it must be the ghosts. [...]
  • Like Breath, Like Air by Mari Pack

    March 3, 2017

    Oh, for fuck’s sake when I die, don’t tell them I was full of life say instead, that I was air and that I swept [...]
  • Overpass by Alison Hicks

    September 2, 2016

    Two days after my mother died I lay on the mat in the storefront studio down the street from the tracks. My mother appeared [...]
  • The Heart Is an Organ on Fire by Sheldon Lee Compton

    November 15, 2018

    Tracy had sensed Bruce was different but had been too interested in his company to see any sign of it early on. The church [...]
  • Milk Crates by Melanie Tague

    April 1, 2014

    I watched you once sitting on the bench by the courthouse, staring at the ground and I whispered that you were missing the [...]
  • The Huldufolk by Liz Kay

    May 17, 2017

    You had spent most of your years gazing at the moon like a thick haired child on a Christmas advert but the orange plane to [...]
  • Pitiful by Jeffrey Zable

    May 29, 2016

    Driving home in a cold, pouring rain I spot this guy limping along in the street completely barefoot, wearing only a t-shirt [...]
  • We are home here and other poems by Cassandra Justine Grisdale

    May 6, 2017

    I watch as you stretch in your sleep, muscles flexing under skin whose scars I kissed moments earlier. You sigh deeply and I [...]
  • Snippet from Soft Opening by Alexandra Naughton

    October 11, 2017

    Playing with this power because I can and because it’s been done to me and it’s something I’ve always had and never [...]
  • Example 52 by JD DeHart

    October 1, 2014

    That lack of response to my chance Good Morning, the stare when I wave hello, yet another example of why I dislike most [...]
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