The Forest of Me Garima Chhikara __________ Just like that, my body hair became thorns. I stopped shaving—arms, underarms, legs, even my upper lip—and abandoned threading my eyebrows, which need tending to resemble eyebrows at all. In the first few weeks, my hair was like grass that tickled my partner’s…
Read MoreThe Ghost of Proust in Mom’s Room Mileva Anasatasiadou __________ Proust doesn’t talk but he’s taking notes. He stares at Mom like she owns wisdom, and I stare at him, like he can teach me. He once had it all, then lost everything, then spent his days chasing after whatever…
Read MoreLetter from the Editor Vallie Lynn Watson __________ Laissez les bon temps rouler! Our Mardi Gras Microfiction Contest on the theme of excess was probably the most fun issue I’ve ever put together, and I loved every story I read. The flashes fell into two camps: those heavy in Mardi…
Read MoreOutlook Good! Mikki Aronoff and Katherine Silver-Hajo __________ Math exam looming, me procrastinating, I tune in to the probability of a passing grade like a luminous radio dial, unfazed by the static of Long John Silver’s tatty parrot, shoulder-bound but hankering for a branch, squawking salty bilge—Pieces of nine! Pieces…
Read MoreCannibal Chelsey Wright __________ After “Scarf Fetish” by Heather Ryan Kelley __________ There are red scarves hanging on a laundry rack in a secret market,watching one be sold and exploitedto a plump model with good taste and a man with blue-tinted teeth. His blue-tinted teeth remind me of the album…
Read Moreen route Jerry Sloan __________ After an art installation by Heather Ryan Kelley __________ you drink water to take pills (favorite mug, borrowedseven years ago from a communal kitchen, shows the cover of Dubliners by James Joyce) and walk to the gallery, past storefront signs for the suicide hotline (“call/text…
Read MoreAfter a Painting by Heather Ryan Kelley Michael Robins __________ —for my brother We might stare, crowding the high,storybook windows, our worrytold in the pictures of us kids. If Iam six & you’ll be eleven: if a threadround my little finger at breakfastor a napkin made honest with a ring.Already…
Read MoreInnocent Eye, 2000 Madeline Ricard __________ After the painting by Heather Ryan Kelley __________ Pasted onto patchy paper worth morethan I could afford when I was in art school,photocopied Barbie legs meet my gaze. The black & white legs flutter and danceon top of cursive letters — ii, f, jjj,…
Read MoreArtist Statement Heather Ryan Kelley __________ The image of a single object can succinctly communicate an idea; and when that object is a book cover, a host of associations- invisible on the painting’s surface- can be embodied. The book covers I have chosen to paint are those with which I…
Read More