Visual Arts
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Unrequited Heart Athletics – Helen Dannenberg
O.K. Heart It’s time to shape up It’s over now, ended Stop hurting Stop aching Let Ms. Brain earn her keep and Direct the show Let go dependence Loosen need away Figure out how to tame the Fanged lion of loneliness Heart Keep that bopping beat While Ms. Brain gets organized Skin Cells Try Amnesia…
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Libertad – Eric Imperiale
This night, like every night, Angelina stands at her kitchen table in the light of a bare bulb, cutting leftover bread into small squares. Her long black hair is neatly wrapped in a bun, like a little hat on the top of her head. A silver cross, hanging from the brown leather neck, glimmers with…
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Rousted at Civic Center – Thomas A. E. Hesketh
Rousted at Civic Center As leaves from fallen lives Delivered from their thought trees Gracing the morning moist sidewalks of despair Between the monuments of culture: Civic Center’s Main Library And the Asian Art Museum, alike solemn Bastions of the tax base Encamped against the barrier wall Itself holding stacks of books in and the…
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Popcorn – William Petersen
One night after work I asked her if she wanted to go for a drink. I hadn’t slept with her yet but it was looking pretty likely. But nothing had to happen, I liked her well enough just to hang out. While we were in the bar she recognized a waiter she used to work…
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swamp monster – Eddy Funkhouser
when it happens in 2009 you wonder you wonder if it was quite right quite appropriate quite consensual being drunk being reckless not physically resisting you must have consented you tamp it all way down bury the monster with mounds of sex (definitely consensual sex) (definitely bad sex) the legality changes in 2013 the federal…
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Rapid Fire, 1993 – Isabel Magdaleno
It was Chrissy that first introduced Alma to Judas Priest one afternoon in the living room of Chrissy’s mother’s apartment. That afternoon, at least, they weren’t friends. Not yet. They weren’t exactly friends, as maybe Alma wouldn’t be quite comfortable calling Chrissy her friend. Not that day. Chrissy had a reputation at school for being…
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Land’s End – Francesca Bavaro
There’s a place called Land’s End where I stand to look, clear my head. I stand there, again and again. Never once, experiencing the same setting twice. This time Waves kiss the rocks again and again. No two pecks alike. some drawn out, others putter off Off into the harbor, Fog and the mist set…
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Here in the Afterlife – Matt Luedke
It’s honestly a wonder that anything at all happens here in the afterlife. I say that not only as a Pleasantly Surprised Atheist, but also because of the truly staggering bureaucracy of all of human history’s souls learning to coexist, with more arriving every day than the day before. Here’s my experience with how everything…
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Letter to My Future Grandchild – Tehmina Khan
After Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner Dear Grandchild, You will not be born for many years. But I want to tell you who you are. You carry stories from five continents in your blood. You have travelled from Afghanistan to India India to New York New York to Oklahoma Oklahoma to California. You have travelled from the Philippines…
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Theyyams – Athena Kashyap
Theyyams A ritual form of worship in Kerala where gods and goddesses enter the earthly realm by possessing the body of a dancer. Temple courtyard, Kerala I. Mirrors Aniyara: the changing room Still as chameleons changing colors, they await their transformation from just one more painter in the city nine months of the year, to…
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