Tag: HFR 2.1

Three Poems by Joseph Mulholland

Transmigration, Volume One Did you recognize the sensation of olive meat hugging its cold pit for warmth? Her blood-belly protrudes over the ruined slipstream—secrets of torn flesh pinpush in the gunshot light. The walls of this open hymnal shine jukebox-pink—she adjusts fingers under the elastic band, glassglued to inconstancy, afflicted. Your morning electric chair shrinking…
Two Poems by M.A. Schaffner

So Morbid, So What? -1- Okay it’s not death but the long preludeof appointments, tests, and troubling results,followed by additional procedures.It’s called a crab because it moves sidewaysand picks almost delicately with its clawswhere instruments can see, if not respond,until the final stage of tearing outwhat weakness it finds, which is everywhere. Here’s more knowledge…
Fiction: Amanda Goldblatt’s “The Way We Feel Sometimes”

First I’m confrontational with shift workers. The pharmacist asks for my signature, if I have any questions, if the dosage is correct. “Obviously,” I hammer. She is small with rosacea. I am not tall; I feel tall in her presence. I watch her wilt. Give her what she wants. Regarding any transaction, I’m taciturn. When…
Fiction: Daniel J. Cecil’s “The Stages of Orbit”

-1- Jonathan was drawn back by a force when the airlock opened. It was the vision of the kitchen floor, which was another opening, and another loss of air—something he wasn’t quite expecting the weight of. That day was like this one. The lack of oxygen was what he felt. When his friend returned home…
Fiction: Justin Lawrence Daugherty’s “Whatever Don’t Drown Will Always Rise”

People hear Nebraska and they think Omaha, the big city, or they think nothing at all. They don’t think about Indians crossing over from the rez in South Dakota for a drink, falling asleep in the highways, opening flesh like exposed empty pockets, begging for wounds. My neighbor told me about seventeen dead horses found…
Essay: “HOW EVERY LIVING THING IS IN ITSELF A HOUSE ON FIRE” by David Tomaloff

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. ONE///DWELLINGS [1] [1] the dwellings we are as dirt, our pillars raised quieter than blood. ONE///VESSELS [2] [2] the vessels we are as ghosts; wet like fingers, treading the dry of leaves. ONE///LINES [3] [3] the lines we are as birds; cages held in ransom; the back of a mirror or a lens.…
Fiction: Delaney Nolan’s “Apple/Arcadia”

Six months after Katrina, you jump head-first into shallow bayou water and break your fool neck. I’m not there when it happens, but Jean is, shooting at raccoons. He fishes you out and pulls you onto the slimy bank. You aren’t moving your limbs any, but Jean can see your chest heaving: in, out, in.…
Fiction: Peter Clarke’s “Untitled in B”

My refrigerator in its old age sometimes quivers and hums when its fan turns on. The quivering is completely insignificant, but the humming, I’ve found, is B, the musical note. It’s not sharp or flat; it’s a perfect B. Just like the fan in my crotchety refrigerator, anything that moves fast enough will begin to…
Fiction: Timmy Reed’s “The Spider’s Eggs”

I woke up after the storm and went outside to see what had been broken. The deck was intact, but all around the trees were crushed like bad teeth. My eye was drawn to the center of the gray deck where above the strewn pine needles and sticks, just inches over a composite-wood plank, there…