Sometimes, you know what I’m saying? Sometimes. Oof.
But then. But then. A poem roosts there in your socket, a story reminds you that it’s still possible to fly or, barring those heights, to fall. In love. Or into a tide pool filled with bright creatures the color of your heart.
These stories! These poems! Watch out! They’ll leave a mark.
Contents
Ace Boggess: “The Angry Red Planet”
Christopher Buckley: “Walking Around” and “El Cielo”
Gregory Crosby: “America’s Oldest Fridge Still Keeping Cool” “Less Is More & Then It Goes Back to Being Less,” and “Betrayed by Ben Franklin”
August Edwards: “An Afternoon in the Supermarket”
Kathryn de Lancellotti: “Remember Me” and “That You’d Disappear”
Darren Demaree: “Emily as Rhubarb,” “Emily as It Wasn’t a Trick,” and “Emily as I Just Wanted to Get There”
Samuel Franklin: “Alan Kurdi” and “Basement Apartment”
Sarah Lilius: “Disco Nap Dream,” “Embers in My Mind Steal All Away,” and “The Dissection”
Jerry Mathes: “Venus in Retrograde” and “When We Last Rode East”
Janko Mikac: “Hallways of the Rejected”
Bethany Pope: “Tourists,” “Hello,” and “Incantations”
Katie Quinnelly: “The Thousandth Crane”
Angela Readman: “Beautiful Girl Cooking Frog”
Gina Stratos: “Girl-Thing,” “A Daughter’s Perspective,” and “Considering Mom’s Rings”
Vickie Vértiz: “Vete a la Chingada Party”
Lindsay Wilson: “Because the Dirt Here Is Poor,” “We May Clear the Land but What Lives There Remains,” and “Plums as Chinese Lanterns”
