Category: Side A

New Side A Short Fiction: “Clownskin” by Brent Joseph Johnson

Clownskin One afternoon the sky above us and the sky to the side of us gathered together into a strange and terrifying pattern. So we stopped what we were doing and pointed at it. Even our power-walkers and mail-carriers, even our demons and sasquatches, even our own actual clowns pointed in perplexity. “Holy shit,” we…
Side A Poem: “Middle Pain” by Naomi Bess Leimsider

Middle Pain Up against the faceless ghost clock again. Time is of the essence. Waiting for the one-sided middle pinch, that sets it all in motion. Cycle in. Cycle out. So, so smooth the way it sheds and grows. How it all goes. The inner mechanism slows and shifts. Only able to harness stillness, can’t…
New Side A Poetry: “The Bird’s Heart Stilled by the Roar of the Inferno” by Nwodo Divine

The Bird’s Heart Stilled by the Roar of the Inferno*For Ikenna, whose father was killed in a Boko Haram terrorist attack. He used to call me his little eagle. He’d hoist me high on his shoulders. From that perch, I could see the line where the burnt sky met the thirsty land. He said an…
Side A Hybrid: “X for the Straight Edge Kids” by Glenn Shaheen

X for the Straight Edge Kids heaven In the woods we built many forts with lumber we found (oops, stole) from around the neighborhood. We’d build platforms, sometimes they’d fall. We knew not to touch Lady Slippers—they were endangered. I don’t think I ever saw a mammal in the woods that wasn’t human. We thought…
Side A Poem: “Wandering” by Peter Leight

Wandering (Sailing) It’s a small boata child among boatsit only takes a second to walkfrom the front of the boatto the back and backagain under slender stringsof smoke rising over the boatover the water spreadingash on the waterholding onto the ropesto keep them from flappingor lifting sheets of smokethat soften without accumulatingor dissolving while the…
Side A Hybrid Piece: “Your Repayment Eternal (Two Necks)” by Andrew Zhou

Your Repayment Eternal (Two Necks) 1. The hangman arrived home two necks richer—one man sentenced for murder and the other for rustling—and heard a whistling in the air. It was the half-competent kind his father used to make in the mornings before the drunkard hollered at the wrong woman on the wrong porch and had…
Poetry for Side A: “At My Grandmother’s Ninetieth Birthday, My Uncle Tells Me How He Came to Accept His Bipolar Diagnosis” by Amy Saul-Zerby

At My Grandmother’s Ninetieth Birthday, My Uncle Tells Me How He Came to Accept His Bipolar Diagnosis smiles and says he realizedthat it’s actually really simple: when he takes the pills, he’s fineand when he doesn’t, he’s not. If I had high blood pressure,I’d take medication for it, he says, and this isn’t any different.A…
Side A Fiction: “personal electric vehicle” by Jenkin Benson

personal electric vehicle nearly september kent wheeled.kent wheeled.kent wheeled. i met him in intro to excel spreadsheets. we were assigned together. group project. three of us. i don’t really remember the other guy. i think he was from wisconsin cause he wore a graphic t-shirt emblazoned with the punchline “milwaukee: the weak are killed and…
Side A: Two Poems by Arden Levine

To the Trade Through the driver’s side window comes sunto burn my thighs as I look for new fire out there:the many tongues of trees, that cardinal plumage,those things that turn over and over and over. Most people get about eighty autumns.But, when put that way, it seemsa scam, the rest held below the counter,the…