The Mermaids’ Smoke Rings

The Mermaids’ Smoke Rings by Becca Rose Hall For Aimee Bender   Loneliness, and the smell of tobacco cutting through sea brine, drew the sailors straight towards the mermaids’ smoke rings. Be careful, cried the ship’s boy, spying the rocks from the crow’s...

12:12

12:12 by Justin Jude Carroll Flint is rarer than floss. I’ve learned to live without flame but sometimes I’ll scramble to the valley floor and find a fall of light limbs. My fires are anemic and balletic, swooping in arcs toward the cave roof and nearly snuffing...

Hank the Tank

Hank the Tank by Tom Houseman Tyler sits across from me, holding a mozzarella stick up between two fingers. He’s not eating it, just picking the bread crumbs off and examining the exposed cheese. “Are you going to actually eat that?” I ask. We’re at the Mayflower...

Thirteen Covers

Thirteen Covers by Erin Langner I still have all the mixed CDs Jill made for me when we were seventeen. I was sitting alone, in the home office I’d never actually worked in before, when I found them. The pandemic was just beginning, and every day, I would sit behind...

The Midwinter

The Midwinter by Erwin Ponce The fallen snow was as crestfallenas a mimicry of crestfallen snow.The falling snow was falling like rain,like listlessly falling rain. We dream that things keep falling apartand things keep falling apart. Sometimes Manila is sad...