By Judith Skillman
Ocean Beach I
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Issue 33
Latest Reviews
Featured Interview
Newest Essay
Another Place
By Addy Evenson
“Sourwood leaves shook in the Canterville wind. Gusts of humid air descended and rattled the chimes on the porches.”
past is a flame
By Karen Earle
“bird-boned singer I / smoke-and-mirror you / minor-keyed to confusion / hovering”
Of the Lovers
By Addison Zeller
“They are first seen, despite the general darkness, close to the window, from which they draw back prudently, it is to be supposed, in a slow lateral glide along the surface of the far wall.”
Point of Comparison
By Addison Zeller
“Of the lawn, a photograph exists, dated more than a century ago.”
Crow dreams an eerie peacefulness laced with fear
By Peter Grandbois
“And wakes, trembling at the emptiness of it, the vast cavities / And begs God to squeeze him, to crush out the air of protest”
Crow calls from the top of a pine
By Peter Grandbois
“With a voice made of rain drawn from the deep / grey of another Ohio winter.”
The Robinson-Barber Thesis
By Joyce Meggett
“I want you to understand, it’s nothing personal. I’m going to be completely silent—you should know that. I won’t write notes or gesture or draw pictures.”
Brother From Another
By Jaryd Porter
“Dad’s house had olive siding and a big porch with a swing on it—a loveseat that couldn’t support more than 350 lbs., i.e., less than one-half of me.”
Tiered Rejections
By Stephen Cicirelli
“His brother, a junior and an athlete in high school, was visiting campus. Wanting to show him a good time—and, perhaps, convince him to play soccer there—he bought weed and Banker’s Club to pregame.”
Winners
By Julia Meinwald
“It was in the Self-Help section of Barnes and Noble that April met Justin. She was holding Open Yourself to a Win, a title her over-eager roommate had recommended forcefully to her on more than one occasion.”
Storing Dinosaurs
By Dan Weaver
“After Carmen married Phillip I couldn’t chase her with my lizards no more since it scared Phillip and he would hide in the room and the one time it made it so that Carmen couldn’t drive Phillip to work and he was late and he didn’t want to tell his boss that Carmen was getting threatened with lizards.”
Blueberries
By Edward Manzi
“Excuse my ambition, it’s lacking.
I’m not even here. Isn’t that enough?”
The End of My Sentence
By Roberto Ontiveros
“The deal I had with my people was that I could sleep in. I got up early those last days at the hotel, but not if I knew I had to get up.”
Cate’s Upstate or Fashion After the Apocalypse
By Elisabeth Sheffield
“Welcome to Cate’s Upstate, a fashion forward boutique located in downtown Toddsville. The term ‘downtown’ is used lightly, of course—Toddsville is a one-stoplight village with one thousand nine hundred and fifty-two residents as of last Tuesday.”
Leeuwenhoek’s Lens
By Eric Williams
“From the deck of the trekschuit, I watched Rotterdam and its forest of ships’ masts shrink and recede, and with the sight of them went, blessedly, the smell of herring and the scream of gulls.”
from Cityscape with Sybarites
By Israel Bonilla
“The cellphone’s alarm woke me up to a bunch of pillows, a crumpled blanket, and the pungent smell of my armpits. I hadn’t registered Marina’s absence; her belongings were gone.”
Let’s Sit on the Bench and Chat
By Tatyana Bek
Translated by Bita Takrimi
“Let’s sit on the bench and chat a bit,
Smile, and let our heads nod like birds.
‘I don’t think you should cry,’You’ll say,
‘Or let the cold numb your heart.'”