Emily Jalloul Raising Daughters -for mothers, for my mother Thank god for orgasmsis what I think every timeI make myself come,like Cleopatra and her gourdfilled with raging beeswhich likely did [...]

Benjamin Faro Grain If not cold starter, thensunlight and a rising, thenbacteria performing miracles,multiplying. We need miraclesthese days—another life burstingthrough the burstingof what you call it whenyou’re tired and you [...]

Shawna Ervin U Uncle’s eyes unseeing like his brother’s, my father’s. Uncle’s thick, black, ugly hair bunched under his thinning Western shirt, the top button unbuttoned, more hair rising past [...]

Matthew Tuckner The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Like the two brains of a cuttlefishconspiring to mimic a rock, I canremake you into anything here. An itchy soul. [...]

Mara Beneway Song Inside the Music Box My friend teaches me how to be alone. She says I mustpicture myself as another person. I practice keeping my owncompany. Picture this: [...]

Sebastian Merrill Why I Left You: Reason #19 I cut myselfshaving: nickon my neck,bright blood.The red pearlreminds me ofthe rust stainon my sheetsafter you fuckedme in the assfor the first [...]

Todd Davis Pit Ponies Hooves cross the carved historyof horses harnessed to coal carts, forgotten century orphaned like a corpse. An echoof a mare’s whicker as she’s forced to mate [...]

Natalie Tombasco Bees! “Honey-drudgers. / I am no drudge.” -Sylvia Plath Bees yellow as Twinkies swan-dive into wisteria.Colony Collapse is her primal scream: orangeBlossom, alfalfa—gone spindly in pesticides,Monoculture disease. Where [...]