Author: Heavy Feather

Two Poems by Rachel Edelman

The Real Work There’s no reality TV showthat opens with a close-up of fingers snappingone twig and anotherto stack a stove with kindling. In an off-the-grid cabinI slip a lit match beneath a birch bark curl.Splinters creak, a whine wanes,a flame ascends, whoosh.Musical interludes?Shavings fizz;sap ekes out a pop.Wood chips turn to coals;flames grow hungry.…
“Everybody’s Hurt,” flash fiction by Jill M. Talbot

Everybody’s Hurt “Can we do this outside, I want a cigarette.” “I heard that phone call, played it over and over, it sounded real—there’s a girl in real trouble, I thought—now just tell us what happened.” “Nothing happened.” “So you called 911 for fun?” “I didn’t say that, I said that I was confused.” “Are…
Two Poems by Success Akpojotor

two BUTTons sitting on our faces Nature’s changing course remains unsliced like a big garlic bulbrendezvousing in cycles of loops and a merry-go-round in an abyssinhabited by gypsies with no roots as a phone call is now a twentiethcentury culture: but we’ve seen this a thousand times from 1918 to 45& two BUTTons sitting on…
“TRANSCRIPT: Donald Trump’s Speech Responding to Assault Accusations,” erasure by Mackenzie Bush

And so now we address the slander and libels that was just last night thrown at me by the Clinton machine and the New York Times and other media outlets, as part of a concerted, coordinated and vicious attack. It’s not coincidence that these attacks come at the exact same moment, and all together at…
“Dumb Bunny Bomb,” a poem by Eric Tyler Benick

I think they dropped it this morning I awake in a warm pot with heirloom carrots and herbs de Provence asking what’s for dinner Outside my window is New York except today it is Laramie Wyoming I am told it is like this everywhere No casualties more a staggering casualness Televisions check their phones A…
Poetry: “Ouroboros” by Nancy Hightower

At fourteen, you see how the world is:the sky full of holes, your stepmother a wounded sparrow, prompting your father to hide all the guns. You’re the trigger, he whispers, slips you a pistol when you graduate college. At twenty-five, you receive an invitation to their hidden compound somewhere in the country, over the rainbow…
“The Monstrous Maternal in Ursula Andkjær Olsen’s Third-Millennium Heart”: A Poetry in Translation Review by Jayme Russell

Third-Millennium Heart is awash with red blood, black blood, a flood of names and namelessness. The poems pulse with RED. A stream flows from the poems, filling the exo-heart as the word “mother,” “mother,” “mother” runs RED. With each line the map of the heart grid beats. This heart is growing through a demon incantation.…
Comic: “A Tender-Hearted Beheading” by Nick Francis Potter

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Nick Francis Potter lives in Missouri with his wife and two boys. New Animals (Subito Press, 2016) is his first book.
Two Poems by Alyse Bensel

Broken Sonnet I want to reach inside of him. I’m tiredof his lack of sleep, the need to build worldsin his head all night. He’s tried to burn allthe pictures I’ve kept. A silent bird makestrees hush.He always wants me sleeping.So I combed the moths out of my hair, wantingmy head to ring like a…