Category: The Last Word

Essay: “If you really wanted to hear the news, you would take a walk through the city” by Tameca L Coleman

If you really wanted to hear the news, you would take a walk through the city I’ve taken a pause on my walk, distracted with all the things I’m carrying: my messenger bag, which keeps slipping off of my right shoulder, two bags of things from Target I didn’t really mean to buy, and a…
“A Flag Unfit to Fly,” poetry by Tim Kahl

A Flag Unfit to Fly The flag stayed up way too long and no oneknew how to properly retire it. It had beenraised too quickly. The young men in cargo pantshad not seen the skit about flag etiquette.They faced the flag and held their breath,sensing a vague feeling within themselvesit should not hang in the…
Two Poems by Nina Knueven

I Knew I Was O Positive When the subcutaneous purple balloonslocked up, guardingmy perforated veins. Universalresponsibility doesn’t articulate from head to toe,but from the thoracic cavity itself—flushing and swooshingin hostile torrents. Needles glint and bags are gratifiedwith new feed—teethy eyesmoving like meat grinders.Visceral tissues pump & pumpto catch up—inflating, deflating,& I’m turned on, thinking of…
“A Growing Crisis,” a Presidential erasure by Tara Campbell

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Tara Campbell (taracampbell.com) is a fiction editor at Barrelhouse and an MFA candidate at American University. Prior publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, b(OINK), Booth, Spelk, Jellyfish Review, Strange Horizons, and Heavy Feather Review. Her debut novel, TreeVolution, was published in 2016, and her collection, Circe’s…
Five Poems by Alyse Knorr

Wolf Tours: Day One The wolves have eaten the children—or so say the clients, unaware of the existenceof Junior Wolf Tours and the mandatoryseparation of young and old. At the small ones’ camp they die daily in games of Graveyard,which, according to the wolves, prepares themto be unafraid of silence and stillness—betterhunters, all. And despite…
“Trial of the Hippocampus,” a poem by Sarah Cheshire

Her: uproarious laughter— a narrow staircase—Me: cheap cologne— wilted rosemary on the windowsill—Her: distant voices— strong hands— breathlessness —Me: mildew— snow— a single half-burnt candle— Them: but which came first, the beerOr the laughterAnd was it you who let his rosemaryWither—(And when you say your rosariesDo your sons prayFor him like his…
“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…