Tag: Vacancies

Two Erasures from As We Know by Amaranth Borsuk & Andy Fitch

*Ed.’s Note: click images to view larger sizes. Amaranth Borsuk’s most recent book is Pomegranate Eater (Kore Press, 2016), a collection of poems. Previous books include Handiwork (Slope Editions, 2012), selected by Paul Hoover for the 2011 Slope Editions Poetry Prize; and Tonal Saw (The Song Cave, 2010), a chapbook-length erasure poem. Abra (1913 Press,…
Three Poems by Christopher Kennedy

I Have Approximated Lightning There is the ghost and then the ghost’s shadow. By ghost, I mean memory. By shadow, I mean nothing. Or God. Or feral animals. I could mean father or mother, but I have decided that ghosts are preferable to parents, that feral animals are preferable to absent gods. I grin to…
Three Poems by Christina Olson

Citing Budgetary Concerns, the Hurricane Name Retirement Center Closes Its Doors Listen: they’ve closed the hurricane name retirement center. They cited Medicare, increased life spans—but really, everything changed after Katrina checked in. When she blew through the halls, water sprung from the ceilings. When she sprawled on the couch for Wheel of Fortune, everyone evacuated.…
Fiction: “Driving Range” by John Scaggs

Like most of the men in the Wetherall family, Virgil had lost a finger or three over the years. The middle finger of his right hand had been taken by the timing belt of a 1973 Chevy Chevelle—had ripped it out at the root like an onion from the soil. On his left hand, he’d…
Two Poems by Conor Bracken

Running After Years My gait’s a mistake my feet keep making.Allow me to introduce myself: an unbridled trot.A hotel quietly on fire and the guestsasleep, dreaming of cleaner sheets.Of forgetting their phone chargersand overtipping the chambermaidsfor messes of deferred responsibility.My lungs inveigh their circuitry with air.What unhappiness propels the sunto punish everything with shadows?I once…
“Both the Substance and the Evidence,” a short story by Elise Burke

On the Sundays Harlow convinced me go to church, I never really listened to the sermon. But certain phrases stuck out. Maybe the pastor made sense of it all but I was caught up staring at Dot across the congregation as he held his jittery wife’s hand. Her legs bounced around nervously like God was…
“Terms of Non-Communication,” a ficton story by Ani Katz

I. Terms of Non-Communication 1. The parties agree not to attempt communication until the agreed-upon date. 2. In the event that either party believes to possess news that is critical to the other party, the newsholder shall seek a mutually trusted liaison to relay the news. 3. In the event that either party feels an…
Three Poems by M. Ann Hull

This Isn’t An Era for Adoring the unborn fingers of a tea cupgripping to its chipped brimbrittle stembones shedding petalslike a dry red rain. Thick, thicketedromances & tiny eyelid-lickingglances were for the timid & the timidhave all gone, leaving bridges scrubbingstarlight from their steel. I could tellmy unborn daughter there was a timewhen a hand…
Three Poems by Kathleen Jones

The Appropriate Cold—for Amy Your death fell with a thud that bruised the rest of us.Now I’m homesick for a winter we can’t return to in a state I’ve long left and you rarely visited, the appropriate coldI don’t feel here. The Fleetwood, a metalbox diner nesting in snow, blue streetlit sidewalks on the approach,…