What sort of city would sell its river?  The same sort, I suppose, that would find a severed leg in its “aquatic recreational area” for boating, jet-skiing, and fishing constructed on a small slice of the site that once was the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes.  The coroner’s office has thus far refused (or is unable to) disclose the body’s age, sex, or ethnicity of which this limb was once a part.  Merle Haggard once sang, “I’ll never swim Kern River again,” and now, a person can just walk across, if he or she doesn’t mind the ozone and particulate matter pollution that has shaded the sky the same ochre as the river bed. As with alcohol, the poems, stories, and essays in this issue won’t keep you hydrated, but they will help you hold it together.

Rey Armenteros: “Donuts Everyday” and “The Guy from the Counting Crows”

Lauren Bender: “Refeeding Syndrome,” “How Long,” and “Signals”

Edward Clifford: “June Through the Seasons”

Lauren Davis: “Hemlock Has Taken a Lover,” “In Mrs. Mouse’s Class, Just like God, We Create,” and “After the Wreck”

Tim Duffy: “Sonnet to a Fallen Tree,” “Night Drive,” and “Ocean Study, Ogunquit, ME”

David Hanlon: “My voice was too feminine,” “If our heads are in the clouds, our feet won’t touch the ground,” and “Poem for Dinner”

Betsy Housten: “Dark Came Early” and “The Game”

Elena Savva Kotsile: “Apathy” and “Wildfire”

Chris Records: “Rosary”

Hannah Rodabaugh: “You’re Lost in Translation,” “Useless if Told to Me,” and “Abacus”

B. Jordan Schmoll: Three Inomnias