Saudade (2nd Place)

Philip Charter When Richie McManus lost his hand in the hydraulic winch, he said he screamed like a banshee, but the North […]

Seven Tears (shortlisted)

Nuala O’Connor To call the merrow-man to the shore, you must shed seven drops of eye-brine into the sea. This is what […]

All the Broken Things (shortlisted)

Melissa Bowers VII. Afterward, every beach is vacant. Our children still race for the sand, rip at the fluttering caution tape, ignore […]

A Hole in the Wing (shortlisted)

Ian O’Brien The slowboat heaved on the black ocean. The weather seemed to have followed her from Dublin, lashing the deck, the […]

Origami Wars (shortlisted)

Amy Barnes My father sleeps skeleton-folded in a closet box. His face is pressed against his knees, a jumble of paper bones […]

Leviathan (shortlisted)

Sutton Strother In her last life, your mother was a whale. She makes no secret of it, so you grow up carrying […]

Last Boat

Ed Barnfield “You have ancestors. Remember them, their names. The Moken, the Sama-Bajau. Lives before yours, expended on the water. Follow their […]

Thirst

Lorraine Thomson Alabama, Alaska, Arizona. Ever been thirsty? I’m talking about a thirst as deep as the ocean. A thirst like that […]

Two Tusks

Katie Oliver Being a narwhal with two tusks sounds fun, doesn’t it? Special. That’s what I thought too, once. Granted, it’s better […]

Flint’s Left-behind Girl

Jess Moody “I know an island.” The words that saved the lips that spoke them.  The Captain had no time for my […]

Sea Mother

Jason John Kahler The oars broke the water as the morning sun broke the horizon. The first hours of the summer solstice […]

Put Weed in the Drawing Wave

Kate MacCarthy On Maundy Thursday in 1911, Ruaridh waded out waist deep into the water. The Atlantic was a glaucous grey-green in the […]

Amelie

Lauren Foregger This house is more like a ship. If it weren’t for the chimneys and the pitched roof, I’d consider calling […]

Salt Tears

Sue Dawes He never takes his shoes off to walk along the beach, says he hates the way sand invades every crease […]

The Last Prophet

Lisa Blackwell The bird stands at least a foot taller than any of the other birds on the rocky outpost. It’s head […]

Sea Animals

Sharon Boyle I am a butcher by trade. That’s what I tell my fellow passengers of merchants, their wives, soldiers, and able-bodied […]

The Sea Change

Jan Kaneen When hunger’s making your insides growl, and rain’s a-rattling your midnight window, and you’re lying in your driftwood bunk waiting […]

It Had Been Calling to Her

Peggy Riley It had been calling to her.   She could hear it from the water.  Revenge, it said.  Take back what was […]

A Celestial Undoing

Sara Dobbie Henry is obsessed and there is nothing Celeste can do about it. She emerges from below deck, fraught with disappointment. […]

Winter 2020

by Anuja Ghimire A wintry Texas morning, I wait for the sunThe full moon, a star, or two by the windowGolden Pothos […]

What Is or Is Not True

Laurie Marshall While it is true I did not accept his proposal, that did not prove that I did not love him. […]

Parent and Child

by Rebecca Ruvinsky A sense of living alreadyin the past. He is lookingat a dying woman whileshe is breathing. Eating.She can only […]

My Rooster Booster

Frances Gapper Skipping most stages of poultry production including death, he’d blagged a ride in the delivery truck. He was free-range organic, […]

Sun in Our Eyes

Rebecca Ruvinsky The audacitywas circumstantial: we didn’t know we wereflying until it was toolate to stop. Then, we’re hopeless, trippingover each other, […]

The Light Falls Through

Jared Povanda With angular gaps in the branches. Light everywhere. In my hair, on my skin, claws of it and petals. A […]

Rama Lama Ding Dong

Sutton Strother On the album cover the Rock Star reaches out, so you take his hand and pull him free, out of […]

Sitting on a Stool by a Bar

Jesse Millner Once I saw a man punch a homeless guy in the face.It was afternoon. It was the mid-1980s. It was […]

The Avenue of Slurred Dreams

by Jesse Millner It was cold then, mid-1980s, Chicago—authentic winter with below zero daysand the wizardry of turquoise ice alongthe lake, shaped […]

What Butch Says

Tania Hershman            Butch says I need to watch everything you do. I say, But he’s just sitting there. Butch slaps my back. […]

Cosmic Lovecraftian Love

Wyatt Winnie Saturn ringsaround cul-de-sacs,adhesive radio wavesjamming, jamming transmissions fromNeptune to Mercury searchingfor staticky reception andconfirmation of alien life. She’s wrapped hertentacles […]

Corona Legal

Wyatt Winnie They’re out of horchata againand I don’t know how to tellthe othersI’m not Corona legal,at least not in this state […]

Each Breath a Chain

Sara Hills After school and on Saturdays we couple up and make-out under the overpass in the middle of town—under shirts, over […]

Addressing her inner voices

Shannon Kenny I have a thick skinbut the patriots and bigotsare wearing it thin.The blood of the world is all over my […]

U.I.

Frank McHugh Universal indicator of right, wrong,good, bad, life or death. Of course,no-one nowadays can make a decisionso the digit wavers, not […]

Running

Julia Kelly And we ran through the streets, stars like comets streaking the black sky, two girls  laughing,  pounding the concrete through […]

Plastic

Nora Nadjarian I’ve spoken to thousands of art dealers listed in the yellow pages. I’ve turned the thin pages and made over […]

Star Fall

Joyce Wheatley There was the “fall.” “Dropped on her head as a baby,” Mama said. Nothing congenital. Nothing genetic. An accident. Story […]

The Vampire Visits The Bog

Meg Mulcahy We sit ditch-side in curdled breeze and watch as curlews tango in briar and thorn. Bodies like mine are made […]

There; Fixed.

Amanda Wilkins Our dirt smelled different, I say.Rust and library paste,Ground up talons and the blood of mice.Sure, it had the same […]

Last Night I Dreamed

Jesse Millner of Chicago back in the 1980s when I drank shots and beers with Polacks and Puerto Ricans in West Side […]

The Chair

by Jesse Millner The neighbors are Labor Day loud now that the rain has driven them in from the golf course. Why […]