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My Mother Has a Cult Following
by Siobhan Adcock
My mother has a cult following. It’s not as big as my father’s, because her band hasn’t sold as many records as his.
Rabbit Suit
by Julia Lynn Rubin
When I look at the sky, I don’t see color. The man in the rabbit suit doesn’t either. I know this because I asked him one summer, when the air smelled like burning pavement.
Superman
by Emile DeWeaver
A mother-of-pearl mirror-stand, rolled rugs from Damascus, and other brick-a-brac from when I went through my I’m-gay-but-proud-to-be-Syrian bullshit fill the shadows in my garage.
Orbiting, Day 271
by Bradley Potts
“There is a 2.43% probability of survival. How would you like to proceed, Jay?” Blue Jay, flutter and fly, away from the crows. That gloating, hateful blue engulfs my tiny window.
Puddles Like Pillows
by Suzanne Conboy-Hill
Things began disappearing round about March. Just little things—a newspaper left on a bench, or a sandwich wrapper—and not blown away or tumbled into a corner, just gone.
Columbus Road
by David Buchanan
It got to the point that I just didn’t want the other guys to even see her. Sharing—a tent, a cockpit, a shower—gets old during a deployment, and I wished she would stay away.
Counting
by Jodi Barnes
Often she dreams she doesn’t get into her dead boyfriend’s car. She dances solo in her stupor and calls her mother who’d promised, “I’ll pick you up; no questions asked.”
Ana’s Dance
by Donna Miscolta
The windows are open to the blue-black sky, but there is no breeze to move the heavy air inside the apartment. Across the street, the diner blinks its electric blue sign.
Mrs. Shelton
by Michael C. Ahn
Even on weekends Mrs. Shelton wouldn’t leave my head. I thought of her on the bus, at my desk, and in my bed. I suspected my mother noticed me at times, gazing at or playing with my food.
History
by Cezarija Abartis
The Medici coat of arms, with its shield and crown, hung on a pole on the sidewalk here and everywhere throughout the city, still asserting ownership.
It all began around a campfire…
Beautiful language
is meant to be heard as well as read, and in fact words were vocalized eons before they were ever committed to clay or parchment. Storytelling began around campfires. We seek prose and poetry that continue the tradition.
Contributor Spotlight:
Love and Hot Chicken
by Mary Liza Hartong
Open Contests
by Stephen Parrish, with the editors of The Lascaux Review