Rock Star: A Murder Mystery
Marream Krollos
Oh, yeah, I would say he was good. He was really good, it’s a shame what happened. I guess it was like, because of how he wants to know the details of your body, or how he wanted to know all kinds of shit about you.
The Neighbor in Apartment 102
Cidinha da Silva
Translated by Ana Luiza de Oliveira e Silva and Daniel Persia
“Girl, all that glitters sure ain’t gold. What does anyone see in that songamonga, anyway?” one woman remarks to her neighbor, as they sit out, sunbathing in front of the condo. Their neighbor walks across the yard carrying several grocery bags stuffed with lettuce.
[So you try to remake a life]
Renée Ashley
[So you try to remake a life] after what you’ve been told:
Not one word signified. A word is a sound is a sign
denoting nothing. Would you want more of that same?
You’d say lonely if it had meaning. You’d say done.
[The gate to sleep does not fly open but the fence around it falls away]
Renée Ashley
The gate to sleep does not fly open but the fence around it falls away and you have never dreamed like this before. A year from your life dropped like a page from a sheaf.
To Be or Not To
Xurxo Borrazás
Translated by Jacob Rogers
“So, Xisto’s boy fixed up the house?”
She had announced herself by banging on the door with an open fist, and those were her first words, open-fisted. At noon, I was a ghost: I hadn’t washed up or eaten, my head was throbbing, I was hunched over, the light hurt my eyes, and my breath stank.
Vigil for Revision
Erin Slaughter
I wish I was the grieved body of a hare
body that sweetbox of dirt I do not believe in
I would like to be memorialized as sheets of topaz
melting in the weeds in front of you
Headless World (Excerpt from a Novel-in-Progress)
Ascher/Straus
Ten a.m. the next morning Jimmy’s got the ancient Mr. Coffee zzz-zzz-ing and chugging and his laundry going in Junie’s half-size machine.
“I could eat some scrambled eggs.”
McCartney’s Autograph
Jonathan Jones
Visiting Hours
I’m waiting where the holes in the ruins and the pavements overflow. These songs just seem to slow things down. A letter like a straight look through the mirror you give me to follow.
A Pipe with Holes Called “Zurna”
Berna Durmaz
Translated by Dayla Rogers
Jemafer set the zurna’s wet mouthpiece against the iron headboard and lay down to give his soul easy passage out his throat. He waited. As he lay there, he didn’t bother shooing away the things rushing through his mind and from his tongue.
Starbirth, Explained
Alan Chazaro
The process in which a cloud of interstellar gas and dust collapses to form a new star. This can only happen in a gaseous nebulae but who really knows WTF a gaseous nebulae is? In middle school, I’d wanted a Terrell Owens 49ers jersey.
On a Scale of One to Ten
Leanne Grabel
We talked about joy. It was my eighth session with Dr. Misaka, a small woman with beautiful shoes the color of cognac. Kaiser had referred me out-of-network for ten sessions with a psychiatrist.
Rivercrest
Melanie Figg
Her younger self was at the wheel. Way before
the turnoff she knows something is not right.
No houses in peripheral vision, the road like a movie reel, unraveling.
Bewilderment
Megin Jimenez
They will total
the money I’ve spent
digital receipts
money I’ve wasted
money over time
as the sum of my life
Chapter Two: Battle at Diamond Head
Eddie P. Gomez
We took a flight from San Francisco to Oahu on a balmy morning in early October, risking a small window of opportunity. In Honolulu, high rises poked at the sky in the distance as the taxi raced away from the airport.
Lucy & Matilda
Kyle Lung
Beneath the redwoods and past the dumpsters, children scream like they’re playing or being sawed in half. I scratch Matilda’s head, she loves that, she hums.
Frequencies
Tara Barr is a lifelong art lover and a working mom in Washington, DC. She recently decided to make painting a high priority in her life after setting it aside for over a decade to focus on her family and her career in technology.