Issue 16

Crawling through one red light after another, getting a contact high from an open window in front of me, I was doing my best not to unfurl a banner of profanity at the same circuit I had been repeating for months when from the backseat my son asked, “Is this the zombie girl?”

“What?” Was he referring to a billboard? Was he reading a book?

“The zombie girl. You know, the one who died in the bath.”

Sylvan Esso’s “Die Young” was playing on the radio, and I realized he had mistaken Amelia Meath’s voice for Dolores O’Riordan’s, and I told him no, it wasn’t, it was a different singer, and then we both began singing, “What’s in your head, in your head, Zombie,” and I tried not to let him hear me choking on my tears as we proceeded from Point A to Point B.

The signs are all around us, so crack open our 16th issue, listen to these fifteen voices, and try not to get shook. We dare you.

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Morgan Blalock: “To All the Lifeless Parts of Florida,” “White Tail Drive: Litany,” and “Heroides II: Phyllis to Demophoon”

Jeff Burt: “Stilt-walker” and “Sound Bite in Salinas Valley”

Silvia Cegalin: “Mater(ial)”

Juliet Cook: “Snake Fingers”

Holly Day: “The Ride”

Lowell Jaeger: “This Rocking Chair”

Nate Logan: “Someone Keeps Moving My Chair,” “On Tour with JJ,” and “I’m So Tired”

Fabiola Madrigal: “Chinese Restaurant off Panama Lane” and “Fishing on a Sunday”

Jill Mceldowney: “If the Dead Were in the Room I Would Say” and “Better Sky”

Oakley Merideth: “If the Riddle Does Not Exist,” “Satori(al) Offenses,” and “Connotation/Denotation”