Spring 2022
Issue 26
Our twenty-sixth issue is haunted, alcohol-soaked, possibly delusional, bathed in moonlight, wandering through forests and caverns, and inflamed by all-manner of approaching catastrophes.
Featuring new short fiction, poetry, CNF, and translations from Alberto Ortiz De Zarate (translated by Whitni Battle), Darlene Eliot, Nara Vidal (translated by Emyr Humphreys), Luna Sicat-Cleto (translated by Bernard Capinpin), Suzana Stojanović, Siamak Vossoughi, Marshall Moore, Farhad Pirbal (translated by Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse and Jiyar Homer), James Miller, Michele Kilmer, Olga Krause (translated by Grace Sewell), John Rey Dave Aquino, John M. Kuhlman, Michael Garcia Bertrand, Benjamin Niespodziany, Lisa Williams, Anna B. Sutton, Sharron Hass (translated by Marcela Sulak), and Steve Davenport. Cover art by Zee Zee.
The Golden Hops
Alberto Ortiz De Zarate
Translated by Whitni Battle
“With glazed eyes he stared fixedly at his glass mug, which looked so bright, and kept getting brighter as he watched his old yearnings and memories floating up to the surface in those minute amber bubbles, sometimes intense and sometimes colorless, just like his very existence.”
The Woman in the Murder House
Darlene Eliot
“Octavia watched the onscreen car chase and shifted in her plastic chair. The chair, bolted to a desktop, was designed for wiry college students, not an eighty-two-year-old woman with abundant hips, long legs, and the impulse to gesture dramatically.”
There are No Salvageable Parts
Benjamin Niespodziany
“Never mind what this has to do with wolves. Somewhere in your absence a cricket is lapping up the snow.”
Sunday in the Woods
Benjamin Niespodziany
“Her cloak is earth and science. His skin is myth and bear. In each of her pockets, she keeps leaves, seeds, stems, friends. He has no pockets and this makes him sad.”
Excerpt from Eva
Nara Vidal
Translated by Emyr Humphreys
“It was vitally important I calm my father down. I betrayed the dismay in my eyes as I announced, yet again, that my mother was dead and that I had come home to a house that was hers forever.”
Three Propositions of the White Wind
Luna Sicat-Cleto
Translated by Bernard Capinpin
“But what else could she do? That’s how it was. She was pregnant. Among all the other options, what was best for all would be to let go.”
You Is Not the Room
Lisa Williams
“You is not the room you thought it was,
capacious room for swearing, rambling,
turning, stomping the walls and floors.”
I Cloud the Moon
Lisa Williams
“I cloud the moon. All’s condescension,
my thought of what you are becomes”
Iron Cloud
Suzana Stojanović
“Why didn’t you ever tell me to avoid some places?’
‘You wanted to meet the world.’”
The First Ghost I Ever Saw Was
Marshall Moore
“A darkness had always surrounded our house. Locked boxes, empty rooms. Secrets hinted at, but never discussed. My sister (we’ll call her J.) and I were characters in our own ghost story as it played out in the modern manor house in the country-club suburbs.”
Lost Creek Cave
Anna B. Sutton
“The open mouth of it all. I tried
to enter, but decided against it”
The Good Man
James Miller
“The good man wanted to spend quality time with the kid—his wife’s little brother.”
The Teacher
James Miller
“The teacher woke up one morning and found a dead squirrel stinking up the flowerbed in his front yard.”
My Wife Was Drunk at Hobby Lobby
James Miller
“I asked about Golden Books, for our child. Did she ever read the Hans Brinker one? We couldn’t remember where the death came in.”
Oranges; Charcoal
Michele Kilmer
“We lost the house in May 1982. I hate that term; lost the house. I knew right where it was. Still do.”
Excerpts from “Hehasnoname”
Sharron Hass
Translated by Marcela Sulak
“these are not lines of poetry
the poem is soaked in darkness
it moves along the tracks on the other side of words
and it screeches. I hear the screeching.”
Ode to Zheka
Olga Krause
Translated by Grace Sewell
“Of course, poetry’s good for nothing. Rich people chew on it, but they’re already full. As for the rest of us, well, read a poem to your grumbling belly and see what good it does you!”
Padre de Familia
John Rey Dave Aquino
“His father knelt and held his shoulders with both hands, looking at him from head to toe, his large hands growing heavy on Lyon’s shoulders. Uneasy under his father’s stare, Lyon observed his father in return.”
The Son of a Bitch of Hope After
Steve Davenport
“The Son of a Bitch of Hope ate
on and off the table, ate
the table, ate the chairs, ate
the keys out the locks, ate
”
Excerpt from Dictionary
John M. Kuhlman
“neph·ew \ʹne-(ͺ)fyü\ n. 1. A human skeleton that has been unearthed by a burrowing dog, often in an unexpected location, such as a vacant lot or beneath the soil of a neighbor’s yard.”
Gospel of Mary
Michael Garcia Bertrand
“In the middle of determining whether two multivariate polynomials were indistinguishable, Judas Borges discovered he was Jesus Christ.”
The Gargoyle of the Notre-Dame Cathedral Paris
Zee Zee
“I love the carved images on the early Minoan seal stones. They are inscrutable, grotesque. The Mediterranean is my culture and heritage.”