— The liminal reaches its end in a fog sarcophagus. A coughing a coughing frog it was funny until he fell dark and drunk on a fog bank leaving a frog bar the lighthouse on the rocks illuminated hitch, rail, and scratchpost. Dark and drunk, the snow was a march of ants on a black field roaring on the television screen. The…
When You’re Broke and No One Loves You by Cassidy J. Hodges
— You never could play guitar, voice like the disapproving clicking of 27 tongues. Everything was covered in dirty fingernails and you never slept. Afraid vultured constellations would pick through your quiet parts and leave you whittled and witless in your bed sheets. You couldn’t remember the names of stars, night sky an equation you hadn’t learned. Sat still at 4 way stops, dreamt…
Socket and Drill
— Woodpecker, far tree. The bark sounds soft from this distance and so I turn the television low to better hear the pause and stab. In the gap, seed birds like pockets of anti-matter Is it territory or pleasure they work? I can’t say. Sounds flash electric in curtains of air. Woodpecker silent now, pulled back into dark matter. Clouds still gray. Round sun…
Split by Paige Webb
— 1 I clicked keys. What are you working on, he said. I drew sentences he dimly heard, nodding slow rhythm, reaching at dresser, culling contact from lid. I stopped typing, changed chair from screen to him—now pulling up flannel pajamas; now shuffling covers over waist. Shouldn’t we get married, I said, over folded knees. He slipped above sheets, ambled and kissed my forehead: Let’s. …
True Story, 3rd Person by Scott Starbuck
— One day far offshore I asked the best deckhand I had how he got to be so good. He said, many years ago his father left two boys in the Alaskan wilderness with nothing to eat except a box of Bisquick and a baited crab ring. Many nights those boys waited listening for footsteps that never came. They ate a lot of Bisquick,…