Category: The Last Word

“Contact Improv,” a poem by Jack Meriwether

I just want to go where nobody’s gone before.All the people here look so tiredBut that’s what keeps them together.I used to believe in perfectible beautyNo I used to think the world couldn’t hold meNow I know it can’t.She said slide your hands over each otherThe surfaces becoming floor and bodyAnd floor and bodyInterchangeably.She said…
“Election Night, Missouri, 2016,” a flash essay by Brad Aaron Modlin

All day, rats had bolted through my body. I spilt my coffee. I couldn’t hold a pen. To an old friend, a pre-Missouri one, I wrote: I wish we still lived in the same town, so I could bump into you on the sidewalk, and you would tell me everything will be okay. Come night,…
Fiction: “The Lawn Jockey” by Dez Miller

I’d been thinking about that swimming hole for nearly half a year, since the middle of winter. I first saw it in a photo on Hunter’s dorm room bulletin board. The 4 x 6 had lanky Hunter poised midair, his arms and legs flung about dramatically, his mouth open in what I imagined to be…
Fiction: “Men with Potential: A Guide to Getting Sober and Staying Sober” by Kate St. Germain

Schedule a date with a tall someone with salt-and-pepper hair who finds you online. He will play drums. He will be part of an art collective. This will be interesting to you. Order beer, he will order tequila. Get drunk. You will be turned on by the fact that he is almost a decade older…
“My Day with the Donald,” a modern American tall tale by Jeff Cuffee

The dead visit me in dreams, and sometimes speak with me. People have said it’s because of my heritage, that I’m African American and Native American, and that has something to do with it. I’m not so sure. In fact, I believe that most of us dream of the dearly and not-so dearly departed and…
Three Poems by Jim Daniels

Suspension Quiet cinder of shame, until a young boy finds the willto hit back. Except. Suspended from school, that’s what.They don’t care who or how. Accept. He wants a Tums to help him sleep—he likes its soft soundtaste. The photo of courage has no negative, cannot bereproduced like a trick from an old comic book.…
Poetry: “Colombo” by Senie Priti

Morning. I eat rice and curry, so hot it brings tears to my eyes. This is Sri Lanka, I think. I take a tuktuk to the central station. Bustling. Colours and sounds and smells I don’t recognise. The light thick and smoky. And hot. So fucking hot. Everyone’s about the hustle. Cues in the street…
“Rock Creek: A Pastoral,” flash fiction by Jarrod Campbell

Living two miles from the epicenter of a useless and oppressive government but still well within what could potentially be ground zero can wear anybody down, but only if they let it happen. For fifteen years I’ve seen the power ebb and flow from weak blue tides to the present deadly red tide and miraculously…
Two Poems by Rusty Barnes

Date Night at Fuddruckers, Saugus MAYear of Our Lord, 2018 we have no imagination,my wife and I,so we end up here, nestled alongside Route 1,causeway to the NorthShore. on the menuthe biggest effing burgerthey have a pound of meat dressedout in cheese,with a great stack of onion. my wife in all things (almost)moderates herself with…