
Some Things Are Decided Before You Are Born
by Marissa Glover
Doctors cannot tell you when you’re born / how many pitches your arm contains.
Foal
by Lois P. Jones
In your next life you will be / birthed in needles / of hoarfrost, your eyes still / in the blue gauze between
The Mourner’s Song
by Roy White
You can die in January if you want, / and lots of people do, but this far north, / nobody gets into the ground till spring.
Songs We Play When We Pretend We’re Ourselves
by Benjamin Thomas
There’s a piano player in the restaurant on the night Zoe tells you she’s pregnant.
Heaven
by Mike O’Mary
“Put on your winter coat and get a warm blanket,” I told my daughter. “We’re going out to look at Christmas lights.”
Grace
by Joseph Fasano
You’ve seen them in the deep sleep / of the season: figures sitting in a garden, / light on their faces as you enter.
Living With Lies
by Gita M. Smith
Whenever someone asks me, “So, what do you do?” I like to say, “I am a crash test dummy tech for the National Highway Traffic Safety folks.”
Clemency
by Cady Vishniac
A dead ringer for Josey. She sneezes as she walks into the pharmacy, and I look up from the newspaper I’m not supposed to be reading.
America
by Katherine Riegel
I never dreamt of you but of your parts: / my flatland home, the mountains my mother loved, / beach where I could look out and see only not-you.
Dispatches From the Backseat of the Last Honest Service Taxi in Beirut
by Sara Saab
From Hamra to Bliss St, we’ll list the loves we’ve thrown in the sea.












