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Memories
Memories by Kathleen O’Neil This translucent organza covers my skin like snow; the innermost part of me is burning away. It just smolders. Oxygen, the air, it’s everywhere. The cold poison will seep down through soft delicate shoulder, under the left collarbone edge through bone and the shield of muscle.
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Belt
by Stacey Z. Lawrence He is eleven, almost a manwhen the belt’s buckle catchesunder his skin.As usual hegrips the kitchen sinkstares at the faucet dripas she whips.He never cries, but this timebloody puddles stainhis white socks, the canvasof his Converse,gore trickles down his leg.She places it on the counter,bits of his ass impaledupon sharp metal…
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Cartoons
by D.S. Maolalai my friends send me news articles which I really should be reading but instead I go on YouTube and hunt for old cartoons; Wile E Coyote and Elmer Fudd – I always like the losers in every game I see but in the news today none of the losers are funny. it’s…
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Polar Vortex
by William Doreski The cold pouring down from the Arctic has toughened into an entity. Some kind of hideous animal, not to be petted, trusted, or even fed. Let it forage as it will. Let it growl and claw the pine-trunks. Don’t let it into the house unless you think it’s about to produce a…
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Dorothy Parker
by Jason Graff Artist: Jim Ford Dorothy Parker was funny in a cruel way which I think made us like her all the more, especially mother, who saw herself as some gutsy, wise, old truth teller of the old school. Now it’s really easy to see she was just mean and unhappy, possibly with us;…
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Cafone
by Salvatore Difalco Artist: Stephen Coley When my father was in the late stages of terminal lung cancer — chemo and two operations had not slowed it down — a group of his friends came to our house to visit him. They had been drinking. Giacchino Palmieri, his godson, the loudest among them, slurred and slobbered greetings to my father, who…
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Forgive Us
by Salvatore Difalco Artist: Julia Geiser “Ma,” my sister said, “we’re taking you to an appointment. We have to be there at ten o’clock. Do you understand, ma?” Maria, the oldest of my cousins, had come along for support. My mother trusted her. She smiled at Maria; her eyes looked bluer than usual that day,…
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Two Poems
by Toi Sibley My Poems Are My SongsMy songs are my poemsbut I can’t sing their hooksI never had the abilityit wasn’t taken by a crookanchored in gravitationbelieving my limitationsmy poems have been wrongeddeprived of becoming my songs. My Lover’s ArmsMy lovers arms are like an ocean when it is quiet and stillcreeping up onto the…