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A late night thought, Ilina Gjurovska
“have you ever wondered / whose job it is /to determine the distance / between street lights?”
A Statue of a Crazed Horse, Joshua Storrs
“It’s a quiet town — the amnesia could be from boredom, but that wouldn’t explain why it feels like there’s folks missing. Nobody we can name, but there’s less of us now than there were before.”
Tag, Emma Munro
“Ella tracked the untagged male to Costco. Like everyone else, he pushed a shopping cart, referred to a list and then selected goods. He wore the perfect outfit to blend in — minimal makeup, silk top, long flowing cardigan, soft flared culottes, and espadrilles. She wanted to grab him and holler, but that would expose his recklessness. Males had been torn apart for less, despite how few there were.”
Takeover, John Grey
“You can tell by the eyes, / blank as brick walls, / if that something’s moved in.”
Abecedarian on Drinking with Indians, Cooper Shea
“sometimes, they’d get a real nice bottle of / Teeling, this Irish whiskey that he loved. They could / usually drink it dry over two games, my grandfather / viciously condemning the government and what they did to the natives. / We’d leave when it started to get dark.”
Life in the Sky Circa 1998, Dominic Stabile
“He lowered the phone and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out, a three-dimensional triangle the size of a microwave floated out through his window and hovered between us. Its translucent, black exterior caught the afternoon light like a dark marble.”
The Secret Life of Randy, Ben von Jagow
“Sometimes, when I have the house to myself, I pretend to be a dog. I get down on all fours and roam around with Sutch and Rusty, who are also dogs. It sounds more exciting than it really is.”
A Rose’s Reckoning, Hilary Gan
“Today is the day someone else’s Messiah rose / to deteriorate finally into a figure on a small wood cross in the attic / waiting for a final coat of varnish.”
Earthly and Immediate Causes, Gwen Werner
“When I got kicked out of bible college the first time, it was for giving a guy a blowjob. He felt as though he had sinned, so he confessed to the administration and the administration included my mom. If I hadn’t fit in with those Kid Christians before, I definitely didn’t afterward.”