By Karla Reimert
Translated by Patty Nash
On the way home sucking on bribes.
Nothing in the city to buy
I could ever need.
I want to go to the playground later, dangle
Issue 16
Latest Reviews
Featured Interview
Newest Essay
IV. In the Clinic
By Karla Reimert
Translated by Patty Nash
I swallow tablets.
May all sensation bend tenderly
to my will.
The doctor talks loudly at me, his notes
gurgle and scrape. His speech is a giant organ.
III. In the Heeling
By Karla Reimert
Translated by Patty Nash
Peppermint bonbons striped
white-red in the doctor’s bribe jar.
Say “Ah.”
Excerpt from Having One Another
By Luise Maier
Translated by Frances Jackson
I played My mother is poorly with a friend. We did so using toothpicks that we’d snapped in half. I jammed half a toothpick between my top and bottom rows of teeth so that my lips wouldn’t close.
In the Room
By Iacyr Anderson Freitas
Translated by Desirée Jung
beyond these walls
the world exhausts
time is only
what is seen in the room
Hinges slipping and about to give
By Marina Massenz
Translated by Johanna Bishop
I unwind my threads, unravel with
feigned patience inner skeins
in the drenched time, the heat transfixes
transforms the solid body
We came out of the box only this morning
By Marina Massenz
Translated by Johanna Bishop
We came out of the box only
this morning joints and reflexes clack
clack all rusty getting into gear
slowly but surely in full operation
Zunzuncito
By Luisa A. Igloria
It’s so quiet at night.
In these rooms, each one
prays in her own compartment
In the Garden of Earthly Delights,
By Luisa A. Igloria
which Abomination are you?
The quiz bait: Are you an ass lobster,
or a guy who’s just trying to jerk off
How to Make Spinach-Artichoke Lasagna Three Weeks After Your Best Friend’s Funeral
By Dallas Woodburn
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Turn on a podcast to listen to while you’re cooking, perhaps This American Life or RadioLab. Something to distract you a little, cushion the silence.
A White Male Writer
By Jasper Henderson
He was a white male writer, and—despite having kissed a few boys at a Halloween party last year, even letting one stroke his bare chest, despite the occasional fantasy in which other boys featured — he knew he was for all practical and self-image purposes straight.
Entwined
Dahna Cohen-Schwartz
Grace held out a bag of maggot-colored stems, and Jordanna apprehensively took one. “I just think I should take less than you guys, maybe,” Jordanna said.
Becalmed
Becalmed from the series Traveling Home. Watercolor on paper © 2017 Mattina Blue
Twenty Days
By Rey-Philip Genaldo
The first thing I told the ER doctor over at St. Francis Memorial Hospital was I had appendicitis. I knew this because of WebMD, obviously.
Kirjaimellisesti
By James Kramer
The video’s host froze, his arms held up in mock surprise, cue cards there still in hand. The clip wouldn’t load any further. Emi lay on the bed and watched the buffering icon circle in the center of her iPad.
Something Different
By Justice McPherson
My eyes scanned the small studio apartment, making sure the power was off and that I wasn’t just imagining things.
The Rapist’s Dog
By Sara Kachelman
The town had one good dog in it and the dog belonged to a rapist. When the rapist walked the dog each afternoon, the schoolchildren would run out into the schoolyard and stick their fingers through the fence.
What We Talk About Now
By Daniel Rivas
You don’t know how disappointed you can be by life until you’re looking at it from somewhere high up and remote, the life you used to live so small, you can hardly believe it was ever real.
Kidsville
By Dan Morey
The boy on the swing was too old to be swinging. He had prickly black hair, and a noose tattooed around his neck. His T-shirt read: “Who loves heroin? This guy!”
Bibi Nur
By Tahseen Béa
In the ancient city of Lavapuri are many ruins of old houses, mansions, schools, gardens, mosques, courts, and temples.
Reception Theory
By James Warner
Is there intelligence out there, or will we always be alone? Once, I longed to make contact. I felt a thrill each time the radio telescope in our observatory picked up an unexplained fast burst, that buzz of are-we-the-first-ever-to-connect-with-an-extraterrestrial?
The Parents’ Conversation in “Hansel und Gretel”
By Clemens J. Setz
Translated by Susan Thorne
A poor woodcutter lived beside a great forest with his wife and his two children. The boy’s name was Hansel and the girl’s was Gretel.