Author: Heavy Feather

“The Sloth Girl,” a new fable by Ted Pelton

Sloth Girl lived at the top of a very tall tree in a great forest. Upon Sloth Girl lived Moth and his Wife as well as Beetle and his village and Algae who was many at the same time. Sloth Girl was hanging upside down in the top of the tree one day when Moth’s…
Four Dossiers, poetry by Jane Lewty

Dossier #1 It’s the year of less-than-half the true extent of time. There is water on the moon And on Gliese exostar 1214b. Its constellation is all wound up. Its struggle will last forever. There’s even an emoji for it, a U With a tilde, a sling dash: U̴ An oviform filled by an approximate,…
Short Story: “Rhizome” by Daniel Miller

OneYou exit the long or short corridor and enter a hexagonal room with a door on each wall. A room with paint on each wall, too, and the paint in this room is alloy orange. On each door, a numeral is printed in gold foil—two through nine. In the center of room is a table…
A Poem by Bridget Talone: “A Dream Is a Witch Your Heart Makes (Music for Shame)”

Ask not how you could ever make it right.Instead, lie down in your young shame—its dirty, slender hairdo blades. That panic madethe mouth. The villain fed his girlfrienda cube of fish off his steak knife,then drew the blade back through her cheek.Misfortune filled the little mouths that opened.Noisy rubies claw a formal sky.Ashamed, the player…
Sara Lippmann Fiction: “Runner’s Paradise”

I’m taking up running, I tell my husband at breakfast. My husband smiles though his juice. Adam is always running and he is always smiling an electric mouthful of fenced whites. He wears spandex shorts and neon shirts of breathable fabric. His man smell rises off of him, benign, like a tea: sweet grassy armpit.…
Illustration by Matt Kish: “Bestiary: Catoblepas”

*Ed.’s Note: click image to view larger size. Matt Kish is a self-taught artist and librarian. He was born in 1969, in June, and lives in Ohio with his wife and their frog.
F. Daniel Rzicznek Poetry: “Hatchet”

Came down from the hills to findthe thaw refrozen, ground even harderthan before, and this in late March: twist of smoke to the south,early star or two riding the blue. The half-tame one, chest-deep in snow,looked back at me, his face tilting asmemories pooled in my head: the time he stole a deer femur,huffing and…
“Hard,” a poem by Colin Winnette

We were born hard. We own a pit bull. We don’t eat much. We’re quiet. If you saw us on the street, you might cross it and enter a store. You might avert your eyes. You would try not to look at our pit bull. Or at us. We are gray and stiff and ungentle.…
Five Mathematical Poems by Timothy Wojcik

Mathematics IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Start with one body, and one sky. End with the sky in the body, and one sky. The organs are in the middle of the sea. The sea is in the middle of the flock of loons. The flock of loons is in the middle of the enormous heart, mathematically speaking. An enormous…