Tony Ozuna Waiting for the “22” they greet each other with a head nod, as they have every now and then over the years, for at least two decades. And this morning it is drizzling and crowded as usual at the tram stop for the metro station I.P. Pavlova, with everyone waiting impatiently for their tram to get to work. “ Jak se máš ?” (“How are you doing?) Pablo asks the Fat Man, a middle-aged porky that he knows, in the same sarcastic and upbeat way used in the film Borat, with

Mark Moran The street sliced like a black artery through the city, a silent stretch emptied by night. The velvet shroud of darkness pressed close and thick, smothering all but the grating scrape of my footsteps. Then it rose. A rhythm, faint, drifting up from beneath the pavement. It wasn’t a hum or a beat but a web of sound, fragile at first, then surging into a fevered pitch. I stopped. It twisted and split, a staccato surge coiling tight around my senses, pulling my atten

Stephanie Pushaw I didn’t finish the book at a writer’s retreat. I didn’t finish it in a sun-drenched café or an isolated cabin or under the creative haze of mushrooms in the desert. Oh, I’d “worked” on it in all those places, in seven cities, on three continents. I told people I was “writing a novel” for ten years. Come dissertation time, I finished it in four weeks. I finished it in Portland, in the last gasps of winter, in that uncinematic type of rain specific to the Paci

Ken Massicotte In their final days climbing to mass each morning the stone steps worn with prayer the studded oak doors, the nave safety from all disquiet vaulting the cleansing acclamation. Their narrative a medieval tapestry: my mother’s Jesus enfolded, his tortured body in Mary’s lap. My father still a boy with his satchel and cap lacing his hand-me-down skates to race his brothers down the river to the Jesuit school. They courted by rail before t

Daniel P. Stokes I unfold my chair to face the sun, but something’s out of kilter. Before I settle down to pad and pen, I have it twigged. There. That stream of water falling to the sea was yesterday a cliff. Of course. Sunday. No greenhouse irrigation. Sabbaths set aside for leisure and reflection. Like funerals – prayers and early pints, small talk and secrets. His sisters on a mission to prise out who got what; my sister relieved of

Andrew Alexander Mobbs I see them through the window just before sunrise as I’m washing last night’s dishes, three glowing orbs cutting through the slate fog from the far side of the vast, crow-flecked parking lot. The kids are maybe six and four, padded in their hot pink puffy coats with their mother trailing slightly behind, yawning then smiling as she clutches her jacket, succumbs to alertness through their laughter and the lingering dawn chill. They scamper in wide circl

Abigale Tabor It has taken over all of my feeds and poems and I feel such dread over the frailty and conditionality of my own being, and how foolish I must sound saying it, let alone typing it, all the while she surfaced, and in one photo, there is a slight rainbow cast on her open mouth, and sure, it is silly to prescribe happiness to her face, but I know only of human emotions and faces and hers, hers was overjoyed to finally see a light bigger than h

Rich Murphy The security officer loves to spend time with the lemonade maker even after the lemons arrive. Wonder always attracts. The uniformed flashlight carrier works around the clock at a job that costs in years around the plant. When the sour (Adam or Eve) drops from the tree ripe into hands for care, cuddling, and then hugging, a camouflaged memory maps out the work routine and the guard ushers from first wail until the sweetened pucker produce presents to the public.

George Ryan They were next door neighbors on Long Island, had gone to Catholic school together and all their days had heard about Ireland. They bought air tickets on Saint Patrick’s Day and on a cloudless afternoon clambered among the rock pools beneath a tall cliff on the other side of the Atlantic. The waves were small and they did not notice the tide come in until the pools began to fill. The way they had come was flooded. Only gulls and seals knew where they were

Jeffery Allen Tobin The brass key rattles in its throat, a loose, dissonant tooth in the door’s long jaw. A sparrow tilts from the fencepost, drops a single, uncertain note— then silence, frayed at the edges. The kettle, left to its own devices, remembers its purpose too late, whistling out an afterthought of steam. In the stairwell, a socked foot brushes dust into a hush of waiting corners. There is a rhythm to departure, an unscored symphony of hinge and sigh— of suitcase l

Jeffery Allen Tobin The roads are orderly, as they must be, threading the city with their silent decree. The lamps burn on, immune to grief, each one a governor over shadow. Your voice, once a casual certainty, has retreated beyond the ledgered hours, folded into the archive of lost things: a coat left swinging on its peg, a cup cooling on the morning table. Far from the field where your hands once gathered the summer’s high-piled hours, time resumes its usual commerce— postm

Alex LeGrys The couch was stripped of its cushions, the floor surrendered its rug, and the walls had ridden of its tapestries and paintings, just as one hand robs the other of its wedding ring the house cat was feral with worry, and the chamomile tea paced in its teacup, searching the floor for a stronger sedative the night was still awake: saggy-eyed and desperate; pining over the fleeting sun, fondling the moon, groping the dimming light as it dragged its feet the palette o

Don Farrell can you recall the barren years within every minute without booze, as the heat of it held your child mind in interrogation, red-faced trying not to get caught thinking and knowing they are only asking, how’s it going. but how do you say in german, i’m afraid the air is trying to suffocate me. the sun is broken, water has no taste…a stale taste, my skin is invisible and buzzes like a mosquito in the dark. when will my eyes see outward. how do cacti mate. where do

Steve Denehan Spring was Ballybough The North Strand cycling to Bull Island with Dessie Dunne and Jim White spring was skipping school skipping rocks on the bottle green sea at Dollymount and Donabate spring was blue skies and red hearts you ran into it Summer was Santry Close marriage, sweat and a pencil tucked behind your ear summer was adoption and Howth Pier Sundays walking with ice cream running down the sides of cones and over knuckles you eased into it Autumn was retir

B.R. Strahan We gnaw the bone of memory, bird shadows skimming stone. Red afterbirth, splinters in the flesh of dawn, blood clouds flying. The flensing knife peels us down, white sheets in a desert wind. The loose skin flaps, our flagging days like torn banners. Slowly we are gnawed to bone, memory turned to bird shadows.

Peter Kaczmarczyk My favorite time No sound but the distant hum of the interstate The early rising birds They are fewer this winter it seems Perhaps the mild weather Or a fear of the coming year The storm they say is getting near I love this time alone The aches of a restless sleep fading away Solitude before the duties of the day Retirement close enough to taste But as yet years away You still sleep but I think I hear a stirring I sneak a cigarette You’ll smell it but will

Cristian Dunn I was so happy When you called me your friend Not knowing the cost God knows how many times I scrolled back to those typed words Like how Akita dogs wait for their Owners at the train station. I didn’t Know it would be four months' worth Of stops before I knew Maybe I was stupid trying to know You because you apologized for losing My flashlight. I’m sorry for thinking of taking out the battery powering me. I was just a fifteen-year-old boy scared of Flicker

D. Walsh Gilbert Through double doors called French beveled glass tempered against shatter Out a half-door split across the middle bolt-latched and locked for the night Past a doorway-sleeping dog as still as dead a blocked and guarded threshold Into the doorway of a cave no door at all empty space without a key exit equals entrance Shuffling slowly through a revolving door with its electric eye start - stop - open Breathe the vacuum in the hospital’s antechamber between inne

Steve Myers None of the old women sleep. They come to the card game, middle of the day and report to each other. They awaken past midnight or in the nightmare hour of 3:00AM. One descends for milk, a slice of pie, a game of solitaire, another surrenders to a darkened den and Netflix, folding endless underwear. Often they wonder what sends them there— the fevered grandchild, the daughter’s affair, an arthritic knee. Then there’s the whole fucking state of the country! howls

Mark McBride “You know who I am.” A statement I first said in March after she thought I was the butcher from Heartly’s Meat Market. Sometimes she thinks I’m Clive her husband (my stepdad, thirteen years deceased) or a nurse’s aide named Manny to whom she complains of clogged bowels. Today, I’m in luck. “I reckon you’re my son.” The upper half of her bed is elevated to keep the fluids around her heart at bay. “And what’s my name?” “Daffy Duck.” “My name’s David, Ma. You