1. I want to say it was Scott who—back in the seventh grade—stole his mom’s Valium, his father’s coke, his older brother’s weed, and his younger brother’s Ritalin. I want to say it was Scott who once, before Woodshop, put a dot in his eye and slipped into his own world for the afternoon. I want to say it was Scott who walked around school…
lol No Lifeguard
If fruit could represent anything but sex I would be content to transcribe still-lifes, glad to stack sand castles from the grit of memory as Jaws trolls just offshore—which I do— but the slick-skinned, the bulbous, the juicy bits of ovarian flesh turn me to you, always a you of some denomination; you and this. You and this and you and here and once. Waves…
Firewood
The night the enormous cedar fell he was still sleeping with the window open and the door ajar though fall was quickly deadening into winter. He had only just blown out the lamp and pulled the quilt to his neck when he heard the telltale crack and knew a tree—a big one—was going. His eyes had not yet adjusted to the dark and it would…
The Astronomer
Claire Menegatti lives and works from her home studio in Los Angeles, CA. She graduated in 2010 from California State University Long Beach with her BFA in Illustration. In 2008, she received the John Lincoln Figure Drawing Award from CSULB. Claire has been exhibiting her work in Southern California since 2006. She has been freelancing as a graphic designer and illustrator since 2012. Aside from…
Our Fortieth Anniversary
(at the end of days) After our rabbit died, there was no more hot chocolate. No Tootsie Roll Pops. Only skimmed barn milk and origami cats. Alongside the Mississippi, the Yazoo still laid down a click track, but in the fog. Her hobos coined potted meat with boxcar songs. Then, tongue-tied alloys began to chink the metal: lungers, phlegm wielding troubadours, harkers, pseudo-balladeers in clip-on…