April 9 The angels watch over us. Everyone knows that. It’s their job–it’s why they built them. The angels are beautiful. I like to watch them fly, with the sunlight glittering off of their gold or silver wings. They look like people, from what I can tell, but bigger. I don’t know if anyone elseRead more…
Archive for the ‘Featured Story’ Category
Stranger’s Child
| by Anna Schwind |
I have one of those faces. The kind everyone finds familiar. Two or three times a week someone will ask me if I didn’t bunk with them at girl scout camp, or if I didn’t attend that poetry workshop last summer, or whether I go to a yoga class at the rec. center.
Continue reading...»In Search of the Bearded Lady
| by Olivia V. Ambrogio |
Ralph sent me the postcard from Germany. It was black and white, and her haunted eyes stared out from a starkly pale face; a beret, pulled back, covered her hair and neck, and-I was sure of it-a faint stubble covered her chin. Do you know this poet? One of my favorites, he wrote. I glanced at the postcard’s information: Gerthe Missant, 1914-1967.
I was fascinated. Against the blackness of the background, her face seemed to float, as severe and thin as a crescent moon. What poetry, I wondered, could she write, this woman with her odd, angular face and unhappy eyes?
Continue reading...»The Last Liverbeast
| by Steve Ramey |
Pittsburgh lay across the river valley like a skeleton unearthed, broken skyscrapers forming a rib cage above a spine of roads. McKitterick Kij descended, the antique Remington Safari rifle strapped to his back clip-clapping with each step. The last, he thought. But what else could he do? A hunter hunts. He zoomed his vision toRead more…
Branded in Gray
| by Dawn Allen |
I’ve learned two things about prison life. First, never let them see you sweat. Cons love victims. Second, never make eye contact because the only thing worse than being seen as a victim is to be seen as an aggressor. Prison life is full of oxymorons, lose-lose situations. Under the circumstances, I’ve been lucky. IRead more…
Side Roads
| by Lisa A. Koosis |
“And Jesus wept!” she said, huffing out a breath. “Benjamin, you aren’t serious.” Loose gravel crunched beneath the tires as Ben pulled the car to a stop beside the weather-worn sign. The sign looked hand-painted, like it had once been quite colorful before being sand-blasted, and faded by the desert’s merciless sunlight. Layers of airRead more…
Backlash
| by Steven Mathes |
The goal was to get home to Julie. Limping slightly and unable to turn his head, Cutter was the first soldier from his transport to get through the gate in Boston. It had been a long, painful ten years, but if he was lucky, he might be home in an hour. He understood that heRead more…
On Desperate Seas
| by Kate MacLeod |
It all started with Jane’s letter. Our Penelope was deathly ill, and I must come at once. The letter went on, of course. In typical Jane fashion, she filled a page and a half with the various inadequacies of Dr. Mansley. Only Jane would argue the science at length without ever once considering I mightRead more…
Caribou House
| by Stace Dumoski |
Domar the Potter squatted on the floor of the mission house, his hands clenched together in an empty prayer, and asked to hear once more the tale of how his bride had been stolen by a god. It wasn’t that he needed to hear the tale again–the details were already ingrained within his mind. WhatRead more…
The Grace of the Foolish
| by Jennifer Linnaea |
In the thirtieth summer of her life, the sacred clown of the goddess Aelmatia stood in the rain in the market square, laughing. Water ran in rivulets down her face; the bright blue and red cloth of her shirt clung to her arms as she slapped her hands on her body in an imitation ofRead more…
Fostering Nina
| by Amy A. Cook |
I hear the first whimper in my sleep, and my brain tries to work it into a dream. It’s just a puppy, sleep on, sleep on. But the second cry is louder, more insistent. My eyes pop open, dry and bleary, searching for the red numbers on the VCR that will tell me how longRead more…
The Sisters and the Seeds
| by Christopher King |
CHAPTER ONE: THE SEEDS Before there were hands to rip roots from the earth, blades to spill the juices of strong green stems, and minds to decide what was beautiful and what was nothing more than a weed, two seeds came into being. It is impossible to say what plant birthed them, for they wereRead more…
Lethe and Love
| by Michelle Muenzler |
Rose dipped her toes into the water. “It’s just a little forgetfulness. Enough to make me forget how long I’ve waited.” “But how do you know he’ll come?” asked the woman sitting beside her. She pushed back the gray hairs from her face; her hands had the crisp edges of the newly dead. Rose rememberedRead more…
The Wordwitch
| by Joanne Anderton |
She was silent when the knights dragged her in. Her head sagged, a waterfall of charcoal hair rippling to cover her face. Her emerald gown was torn at the bodice and skirt, and I could see skin, ivory and pink. Sharp, metallic footsteps reverberated from the stone walls and steel doors. I repressed a wince.Read more…
An Heroic Tale in an Enormous Tomb
| by Tim W. Burke |
I see your smiles in the dark; it warms me to know I am so welcome. My time among you is short, so I must begin the prelude. We had been part of a great world named Persepis. A world ruled by empires of enlightened races, driven by powerful magic, and home to dragons andRead more…
Letters to My Leg
| by Karen Aschenbrenner |
The large bonfires blazed in the harvested cornfield, fueled by dried leaves, mulch, and the novelty of celebrating Samhain in northern Wisconsin. Around them, my friends and neighbors stumbled through strathspreys. The filtered warmth from the bonfires overheated me, and I retreated to my wool blanket spread out under a willow to take my prostheticRead more…
Hoops
| by Doug Goodman |
loops like a fugue. It is confusing, not knowing where I have been. Raven screeches at me from his empyrean atop a trashcan on the gray sidewalk. Hozho, harmony in the universe, must have been upset. Carelessness destroys it. Ripple effects. Religious chaos theory before it sprouted butterfly wings and became popular. Anything in myRead more…
Poppies and Ghosts
| by Len Bains |
“No!” Ernest managed to push away the poppy. It reminded him of a wound, the image came to him again, a face opened like a red flower. Poppies! He’d spent two years in the trenches and never seen one damned poppy. Armistice day again. Another year rolled around, and they’d wheeled them out once more.Read more…