False Flat
Caroline Gonda It’s a thing in cycling, apparently, an incline you don’t recognise as one because it’s not that steep so you […]
Welcome to the Pixel Exhibition
Paul Thompson On screen you are an abstract masterpiece. I secretly take screenshots as we talk, print and rearrange them on my […]
The Things Sally Hardesty’s Best Friend, Pam, Never Speaks Of (CW: body horror)
Jan Stinchcomb What it’s like to be the first, instead of the final, girl. How it feels when your ass, […]
This Seagull
Richard Barr This seagull was bigger than my cat. Noticeably so. It was rush hour. All at once the people, so many […]
Osmosis
Shannon Frost Greenstein It doesn’t taste as bad as you would expect. I thought it would be like swallowing a mouthful of […]
I’m a Corpse Flower, and I’ve Got a Bone(r) to Pick with You, Botany
Shannon Frost Greenstein So. Botany. Let me just say it, right out loud, because it’s what everyone is already thinking, anyway. I’m […]
The Vanishing
Jared Beloff 1. The house went without a sound during Mrs. Thompson’s daily trip to the mailbox last fall, her back turned […]
Sirens
Jennifer Furner Whenever I hear sirens, I think of Sister Liska, the older-than-dirt nun from my childhood parish (may she rest […]
The Side Show of Birth
Amy Barnes I give birth to the longest baby ever on the longest day of the year. 144 inches. A gross […]
Clothesline Number 9
Amy Barnes The sun dries my paintings where Mama can’t see me. I’m supposed to be doing chores but instead I’m […]
My Boyfriend’s Wife
Iona Rule When I’m with my boyfriend, who is also her husband, he serves me spaghetti in their pond green bowls. I […]
Untied
Al Kratz Skitter scattering critters of the ceiling, we’re trying to sleep around here. I guess boundaries and borders. I guess party […]
Babydoll
Sarah Jones A moment of silence, please, for my missing left breast. For the spreading lumps bubbling through me. Ripping me […]
God knows what to do with our bed
Kik Lodge Down in Grignan, a man called Didier has a comfortable clic-clac. He’s a self-diagnosed poet and truffle-hunter, says all treasure […]
Long After the Long Ride into the Sunset
Marvin Shackelford First thing in the morning I draw a blue mark in the shallow dimple of my cheek, so near my […]
How A World-Famous Pianist Arrives At His Venue Where He Plays Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No 2 In A Slightly Out-Of-Tune C Minor
Noémi Scheiring-Oláh All I see are eyes, staring at us as we leave London Waterloo Station, carrying our heavy load across […]
The Man With the Moon
Sabina Wong Little Ramon Huang was in love. His child’s mind too small for him to process this particular complexity, all […]
My Mother Was Once a Story
Sally Badawi Hijab wears my mother. Her jaw pinned smooth with pearls: convex mirrors refract evil blue eye. This is to orient […]
Two Needles, One Dog
Kev Thomas I asked to see the vet. I was holding Gaia in my arms. She was wrapped in my school coat, […]
The Other Mothers
Kelle Clarke The early morning train passes swiftly through the thick trees below, sending her coffee mug jittering across the counter. […]
When the Organ Player from Schmitt Music Stops You After Your Shift on Holy Saturday to Say You’re Terribly Beautiful
Elizabeth Fletcher You’re on the second-floor concourse when it happens. It’s one level up from the music store and neighboring one-hour […]
How to visit an Irish peninsula in the 1970s
Mary Byrne Take the long way around a coastal promontory on a Sunday afternoon. Floor the accelerator in vain when the clutch […]
Nobody Will Hear Them
David Hartley Craig knows other Craig sneaks into his shed with his girlfriends. Craig knows other Craig thinks nobody will hear […]
Post Modern
A. Joseph Black Christ, he’s still there. I lean back out of view and catch the curtain with my shoulder. It sways […]
Candy-Striped and Candy-Stripped at Greenwood Leflore Hospital, During the Summer of Your 16th Year
Exodus Oktavia Brownlow Candy Stripersspells a little too much like Candy Strippers.A uniform’s a uniform’s a uniform,and you are a peppermint-wrapped-paper sweet.When the […]
Wolf Song
Lisa DeCastro I am an onyx pearl Inside your shell Rolling on your tongue Swallowed Implanted A stone in the underbelly In […]
This is what happens when you go places:
Sidney Dritz In my head I’m still standing on that curb, night time in May, and my lips on your lips, airplanes […]
With Nothing to Lose (Not Even Her Body)
Mandira Pattnaik Adori wasn’t always a shadow. When her husband confined her to a window-less room immediately after her twins were […]
They Were Boiling Their Clothes
Rodrigo Duran They were boiling their clothes. They were in the kitchen wearing raincoats, but the true outfits swirled in […]
The During is a Deep, Wide Pit
Lindsey Neely I knew last night that today would suck but I watched the testimony anyway because you have to know […]
The Copyeditor’s Lament
JP Seabright I dream in the margins. My head full of black marks on a page. Several small underlinings; here and […]
Out to the Rain
Lauren Cortese We think we stopped crying on a Thursday. Those of us who were at funerals or who gave birth that […]
Night Fishers
Merridawn Duckler Water against the pier like a throat click. The churned blanket of our childhood bed. Lines curve back and fly […]
Seed, Root, Shoot
James Montgomery Soon enough, there’ll be time for twelve red roses. A carnation wrist corsage. Homemade Christmas wreaths hung from her own […]
How Do You Recognize a Good Man?
Kristina Thornton Friday night freedom hangs in the air as she follows him through the packed street. Shouts and laughs surround them. […]
Scarlett’s Got a Gun
Fiona McKay Scarlett’s got a gun. Moves on alcohol-soft legs through a glass room, louring shadows, candlestick-high. Feels no pain, plant-pot rammed, […]
Autumn Wasp
Harriet MacMillan You have made of me an autumn wasp.The last yellow gasp of summer was utteredand the air crisped around me, […]
Growing Season
Katie Hunter Last summer my tomatoes Swept the garden. Downy tendrils swaddled jalapeños and My soiled hands Arrested dreams of eggplant Crept […]
Museum Piece
Becky May They’d hung Monet’s ‘Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond’ across the white expanse of wall in the end room, […]
Mortuary Science
Terri Linn Davis (read Terri’s interview about this poem with our Poetry Editor, Ian O’Brien, here) Terri Linn Davis has an MFA […]
Robbie was here
Adele Rickerby Robbie was here ‘84 Flick of a thin folded foreskin, a ring of rubber peeled, turning, curving, splaying and spraying […]
When Pigs Fly
Kyla Houbolt The President identifies as an alien shill. He has trouble falling down stairs. And up them. I mean, he forgot […]
Interview With Poet, Terri Linn Davis
Ian O’Brien 1) ‘Mortuary Science’ is part of a wider project you are working on. Tell us a little about that. “Mortuary […]
postpartum rage
Vic Nogay in a vision, i hit her. her giggles go silent, her lights short out, the synapses fold as the twinkle […]
The Weeping Woman
Claire Hampton I watch the man at the table gnawing his dirty fingernails, pungent sweat darkening the underarms of his denim […]
Sorry For What I Said When We Were Putting Up the Tent
Helen Gordon It was the smell, shaken out with the crisped corpses of last summer’s earwigs; musty, with a tang of mould […]
Workaholic
Katja Sass It’s 9.45 pm. Everyone’s gone except a 30-something woman sitting alone in her 2m2 office cubicle, finishing off the last […]
The Registrar
Abi Hennig He tucks a stray curl behind her ear. She leans into him, rests her head on his shoulder as he […]
The Obligatory Alligator
Jesse Millner Last night I dreamed I drove through an army base I’d never been to before. It was huge and filled […]
The Galactic Well at the Edge of Existence
Riley Cross Eo stirred the well with a silver spoon. The waters of space and time rippled in response. He waited for […]
