John Petelle – Five Days in the Park
Five Days in the Park Habit draws me back on Friday. Yellow tape blocks off my park. No admittance, no entry. Stuck in the ground, a battered sign: Lake Closed: Toxic Algae Bloom. No animals to see in this tidy place. I perch on my mountain bike, watching the stout official nervously sweating, flailing with […]
Stephanie M. Wytovich – The Survival of Fishes
The Survival of Fishes There’s a ship inside my stomach, its sails set to drown, to crash and splinter like the wood of the boats I sank, all those men evaporated into shards, into rubble, into dust. Tell me: do Krakens eat the souls of women who never wanted to be sirens? Because I don’t […]
John Grey – An Alien Visits an Earth Psychiatrist
An Alien Visits an Earth Psychiatrist He closes the door behind her. There goes her last remnant of a chance. It’s back into the fog of city streets and their unfriendly denizens. She has nothing in common with any of them. Nor the oak, she rests beneath. Except that its leaves are falling. And so […]
John Tumlin – Mac Watson’s Last Testament
Mac Watson’s Last Testament Recording found in a pressure suit This bottle’s almost gone, but I don’t think I’d trade it for ten sippers full of air that starve your blood unless you poke along. Your time runs out no matter what the charge, and I don’t give a damn for time as such. I’ve […]
