Author: Heavy Feather

Fiction: “Almost Like Children” by Erika T. Wurth

Cary was a small town Indian girl. Her eyes were wide, black and slanted. Her hair long and orangey brown. Years ago, her mother had come to Idaho Springs to be with her father, but she was gone. Cary’s mother was Chickasaw and nobody knew anything about her, not even Cary’s father. Sam, however, lived…
Two Poems by Kate Bucca

Cleave The man I chose for an affairrose onlyto my forehead. His cock barely registered in my mouth. So when my husbandthrew me down and forced his way inside I answered him honestly— yes, you are bigger— before he struck my face. ~ Flashbacks ease with treatmentor so they say. Instead I recreate,drink…
Poetry: “Getting an IUD after Trump Becomes the President-elect” by Emily Paige Wilson

An empty vase has been placed near the sink.An elongated bottle cut from bright cobalt glass,slender neck stretched four or five inches high. It’s mydistraction when the clamp’s cold pinch starts to pulland turn my stomach. I did not wish for this intimacywith fear. My doctor’s fingers caressing a cervixthat won’t open, as if it…
Poetry Review: Nicholas Carlos Fuenzalida Reads Mathias Svalina’s The Wine-Dark Sea

Taking its name from one of Homer’s most enigmatic and contentiously debated epithets, The Wine-Dark Sea, Mathias Svalina’s fifth book, is comprised of seventy-six poems, each bearing the collection’s title. The nod to Homer, as well as the opening epigraph by Diogenes, lends itself to drawing a connection with another leading figure of the Greek…
Essay: “On Family and White Liberalism after the Election” by Justin Brouckaert

In the days after the election, Twitter became a madhouse of pointed fingers—who to blame, who to follow, what to study. Shocked and numb, I scrolled through every thread my liberal echo chamber deemed a “must read.” One in particular, by Marco Rogers, actually was. White liberals, Rogers claimed, have “systematically and deliberately separated themselves…
Review: Nick Sweeney on Mourner’s Bench by Sanderia Faye

This is not a “Civil Rights Movement” novel. This is a novel in which the Civil Rights Movement occurs around characters. If this was the former, it would be more historical, perhaps grander and more mythical like JFK’s Camelot. The latter, however, allows us to dive into a world and see history as it happens…
Fiction: “Correcting President Barnes” by Kelly Ann Jacobson

We called him The Editor. He arrived from the sky—black briefcase in hand, suit cinched tightly at the neck with a black tie—and after a flawless landing on the roof, entered the building in a few short, purposeful strides. He looked like a man, and if you touched his skin, he would feel like a…
Essay: “Recent Encounters with Wildlife” by Ginny MacDonald

I’m writing at work again. I’m sorry, employer. I keep the news feed on: Google the names, groups, affiliations. I get my facts straight. I saw a moose in the headlights—dust-brown flanks, head forward, long-legged and unconcerned with my existence. I stopped the car, but I was already past and the sun was not yet…
Poetry: “Night Snake” by Jennifer Martelli

I try to bend my backto the sadness. The moon grows backfat, a yellow scythe. Perseus decapitatesthe head of the Gorgon, snakes litter the cold sky, just asdangerous dead. My friend found one blacksnake head, one rat’s tail, juniper budswaxy & strewn in her yard after a quiet night.Anything I’ve ever feared regenerated, camearound on…