Category: Side A

Side A Fiction: “To See the Moon” by Marlene Olin

To See the Moon What she hates most are the lights. There’s no dawn. No dusk. No silver sliver falling through the slats. Instead a light as bright as a photographer’s flash burns day and night. She’s almost sleeping. She would die for some blessed sleep. Instead she hears the squeak squeak squeak of a…
“Pennies on Train Tracks,” a Side A flash fiction by Catherine Chiarella Domonkos

Pennies on Train Tracks You taught me to lay pennies on tracks to get flattened. Smooth brown ovals we stowed in this Skippy jar we buried under the house like pirate treasure. You showed me the brightest places on the tracks are best to get really flat pennies because that’s where the wheels make the…
Side A Flash Fiction: “Causality” by Anita Goveas

Causality When my placid younger brother scalded himself on his sixth birthday, the first time he ever cried, my mother declared it was inevitable and cultivated a hobby of having accidents. She could no longer touch a newspaper or our dog-eared copy of 1001 Nights without a papercut that rendered her helpless and table legs…
Side A: “the cinder path,” a poem by Zach Savich

the cinder path harder to writemyself a noteon the back of the eulogythan the eulogyit takes a long timeto tune and longerto trust sometimesthe captions say“[gentle minor melody]”sometimes “[windactivates the motionalarm]” the fantasyat thirty-nineis a hamburger inthe parking lot by the squatlighthouse scrap beachif you touch me herebelow the throatit smells of rainthere isn’t roomon…
“Black. Star. Pieces.”: Side A Poetry by Matthew Cooperman

Black. Star. Pieces. —for Rosmarie Waldrop 1 The gathering of parts to their parts, will there be gathering of parts? Time, in a word, reading. As in, where did the song begin? Go on. Singing the terrible truth of the world, a griot through an open window. Something happened on the day he died, I…
Side A: “OUR SPERM COUNT IS DOWN!,” a collaborative work by Vi Khi Nao & Jessica Alexander

OUR SPERM COUNT IS DOWN! We watched a magic-heist last night. It was like J.K. Rowling wrote an episode of Law & Order & David Mamet directed it. We thought the magicians were one step ahead of the law but the law was the greatest magician of all. We agreed the female lead was too pretty…
“O Pen the State/open the say/ate the stated,” a Side A Poem by Tony Mancus

O Pen the State/open the say/ate the stated We are always one link from disaster blinking the clouds top the mountains like thought bubbles from the earth with a silhouette of a person crossing above the road some wearing a reality backdrop/terminus and beginning/eventually the body forgets how to swallow the mirror in every eye shaving reality drops behind its work zone sign blinking cream true what roots we…
Side A: “The Borg EP,” a comic by Rachel Busnardo

*Ed.’s Note: click image to view larger size. The Borg EP Mini-interview with Rachel Busnardo HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)? RB: There are lots of moments that have shaped me as a writer, some big, but many were very, very small little pin pricks…
Side A Video Poem Collaboration by Penn Kemp & Gary Barwin: “The Female Line”

A note on the media: Gary Barwin created the video poem in collaboration with Canadian poet Penn Kemp. Kemp wrote the text but Barwin set it with music and visuals and they both performed it. The Female Line Some small part of us is held in our mother’s egg whenshe is in our grandmother’s womb, …