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”