by Jac Shihadeh ‭On the way to the city yesterday, I thought I was going to die in the tunnel with a Bible open‬ in the backseat. I looked out the rearview to gauge how much time we had left,‬ Mom talked about the apocalypse, and suddenly we’re spit out on a Manhattan street.‬‭It’s funny how that happens. How I’m here again and I’m me‬‭ whoever that is these days. These days‬ I drive fast down suburban streets and scream because no one can hear me.‬ ‭I said, drop me off on Canal Street …

by Christopher R. Vaugha and it remains scrawled on her cheeks in red, as if having scratched her there. Giggles, I have a plum beard! I ask, Will you have to shave? She shivers her head twice, We’d never do that, that is so silly! In this house, there’s no word for cleanse, or pit, or blade. We only sense things, the words for them are birds concealed and chafing against branches. Fruit perishes twice—first stem-snapped, again when …

by ​​Paul Vermeersch In the end, the Reverse Wolf enters another body. First  it coalesces in the compost of leaf litter, from mosses  and fruiting bodies, from masses of fungal filaments knitting  subterranean threads, flowing now into its wolf form.   The coat of the Reverse Wolf sprouts outside its body  and grows inward, piercing its hide like five million  fine needles. The Reverse Wolf regurgitates little girls  wearing red …

by Sarah Cavar ( top : scar ) At this most excellent brink  where the body ​ meets the flesh  of stirred ​Air ​ a leaf  ​​​drifting Turns waning moons  against my gaze –– We diagonal dance  I, a small pupil child by ær crackling  ​   ​hood rocked by the gentle cradle of wind ​     a muscle Flexing ​​relaxing A project of vocal …

by Susan Cronin 15-year, no-nonsense proof.  Bite of orange, a caramel on toast— on the nose, as one expects—before  a sip slips a hint of hummingbird tears harvested with care and exquisitely measured. No reason why she hadn’t slept with the hot crew team guy across the hall in college, the one with a Raggedy Ann and Andy pillowcase. In his dorm room they would lie on the …

All the way from poppy seed to jackfruit, we are told to measure each week, each stumble and kick. From produce to blood levels we weigh chances the way we weigh ourselves, breath held, fear crawling up our naked skin. We don’t budget for peaches and avocado; grapefruit and corn. We don’t expect time to lapse with soap scrubs reaching beyond the elbow, under nail beds scrubbing our lifelines down to broken. The smell of unsullied skin, how it lingers, sticks fast to the nose, …