Bryan Edenfield was born in Arizona but has lived in Seattle since 2007. He was the founder and director of the small press and literary arts organization, Babel/Salvage. He hosted and curated the Glossophonic Showcase and the Ogopogo Performance Series. His writing has most recently been published in Mantra Review, Meekling Review, Dryland, and Plinth. He is currently one of the Jack Straw Writers for 2018 and the host of the Hollow Earth Radio program, Glossophonics.

Graffiti: 

D. M. Kerr is the writing name of a Canadian writer currently living and working in Singapore, where he teaches game design and business. His work has been published in Blank Spaces, Eyedrum Periodically and Birch Gang Review. He can’t afford to eat at Scully’s, not with the money they pay teachers these days.

“I’ll book a late lunch,” Verlane said, “at Scully’s.” He was proud of Scully’s, of its wide white plates, white cloth napkins, burnished cutlery and haute cuisine. Late lunch was even more of a delight there: by a curious alignment, sunlight reflected off the surrounding office towers to bathe its stained-glass roof, and, through it, the tablecloths, the pale oak floor and the conversation of its patrons with a lambent rosy hue.

“I’m downtown,” Scorea had just told him, over the phone, “St. Michaels. My Gynie checkup should be finished by one. Can we do lunch?”

Verlane and Scorea had little chance to see each other after she and Jake had moved to the suburbs. Verlane had chosen to stay in the city, close enough to their mother that he could check up on her regularly. The money he saved from not owning a car he spent on expensive places like this.

Even with the sunlight, Scully’s was not busy in the early afternoon. They got a good table. “Try the sliced black pepper ham,” Verlane told Scorea. “It’s delicious.”

Scorea smiled. “I’ll take a salad instead.”

They didn’t talk much, even after the waiter delivered their choices. Their sibling relationship was like that. It needed only the occasional, innocuous question to add a bit of flavor to the arrhythmic background ambience of the fine restaurant.

But that ambience was suddenly pierced by the primal, anguished wail of a child: “Mooommmeeeeeee!” The “eeee” part of the wail, a sentence in itself, spoke of pride injured beyond repair. “I want! Now!”

The patrons of Scully’s were too polite to break their chatter. Verlaine glanced up once, as he continued to cut the slices of his ham. Scorea didn’t appear to have heard: she was moving her fork through her salad to pick out the less exotic bits.

The cry had come from behind Verlane, close enough that he could hear the woman’s taut, whispered response: “Graham, if you don’t shut up right now, I’m never taking you downtown again.”

The boy responded with another deeper wail.

He’s got her now, Verlane thought. She’s made a threat she can’t carry out, and he knows it.

“Here-” the mother said, angrily. Perhaps something was passed over, Verlane didn’t know, but the boy’s wails subsided immediately into sniffles. The chatter, which had by now, in fact, paused, like musicians waiting out an impromptu solo, returned to its original arrhythmia.

Verlane looked over at his sister. She had not paused plowing the greens of her salad bowl. The sharp lines of her face were beginning to soften. A glow of country freshness radiated from her cheeks.

O Scoreana! he thought. What will your child be like? Will you and Jake cocoon him in your house? What idle threats will you make when your children turn public places into weapons against you? What negotiations will you try, and fail?

Scorea raised her head, as if in response to his questions, and smiled gently. But she wasn’t smiling at him. Her eyes focused somewhere over his shoulder. Verlane heard the squeak of stroller wheels on the oak floor, and the faint whimper a child makes when its head is nestled somewhere warm.

“He’s so cute,” Scorea said.

Pratibha is the editor of The Literary Nest. Her poems appear in Plath Poetry Project, Ink & Nebula, Foliate Oak, The Lake, miller’s pond poetry, Akitsu Quarterly, Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-Po Listserv, and other literary magazines.

At This Very Moment

At this very moment
Someone is taking her last breath
I should be thankful I only have
a twisted knot in my heart
and not bullet in my head
or a shrapnel from a bomb blast
I will take another breath and yet another
until the knot becomes
gnarled beyond repair
and the smile on my face
becomes the witch’s crackle

Night Snowfall

night snowfall
a yellow porchlight
kindling hope

Lauren White currently resides in Orlando, Florida and is a full-time engineer. She writes poetry on the side as a therapeutic outlet. For more writing samples, follow her blog at https://hellolaurentms.com.

The Winds

looking at my lone
reflection and feet in the puddles
in the morning hours
hail cab to next adventure
on the fickle winds of time

Out at Night

Riding my bike through
New York night shimmers and glows
People watching to
My heart’s content oh
How the freaks come out at night

In the Right Light

In the right light,
No one notices anything
The shadows run away
to play at the edge of perception
In the right light,
I am resplendent
You look through my wild eyes
Both glorious and glistening
But they see through you
Your armor is dull
You are charmless
In the right light,
Blindness is our friend
We relish our ignorance
When the shadows tire of their play
The mind’s eye can see again!
Our fear is realized
The magic was a trick of the light

Ella Syverson is a junior at a project based charter high school in northern Wisconsin where she is able to pursue her passions: creative writing and social justice. You can find her previously published work in Youngzine, 101 Words, Shady Grove Literary, and Silver Pen’s Youth Imagination.

It’s dusk. Maybe I should call for a ride. The streetlights are off. That means it’s not quite night yet. In fact, it’s not even that dark. It’s only a few blocks. I’ll take Edge Street so I don’t pass the skate park. No need to call.

Shit, someone’s coming. He’s not too much bigger than me. I could probably take him. What the hell are you thinking? It’s just a guy. Eyes down. You don’t owe him a smile. You don’t owe him anything. Stop holding your breath. He’s passed now. Don’t look back. Stop getting so worked up over nothing.

Home now. Breathe.

“Hi, honey! Did you have fun with Courtney? Next time text before you leave, ok? Just in case.”

“Is Jason back from practice yet?”

“No, I let him stay late for conditioning, but Caleb’s here. I thought we could watch a nature documentary. There’s one about leopards that sounds good…”

“Sure, Mom. Whatever.”

Mumbai now holds the largest concentration of leopards in the world. These deadly cats stalk the city streets, preying on livestock, and occasionally even attacking people.

“Oh my god. Imagine walking by yourself at night. That would be totally terrifying.”

Caleb. Little does he know.

Mariana Sabino is a freelance writer. Her short stories and articles can be found in Mediterranean Poetry, The Humanist, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Culture Unplugged, Taste of Cinema, among other places.

My Town

Does not exist.
Anymore. The rubble of memory
Remains. Stains the senses, droplets
of red and anise. Debris and humans
Interchangeable. Wears, my town,
her caul like a crown.

Lapping up trinkets, nostalgia,
Crumbs of time.

Things the dead leave behind.
Three years, five years – fifty.

Sand-like time, burrows and flies.
Still. Beauty, salty, stings the tongue.

On the Street

There’s this man with an hourglass figure
His sway natural, unaware of itself.

He’s old and he wears old man’s clothes.
Beige and brown, cinched by a belt.

He has a hat on. He brings his hand to it,
patting it down. On account of the wind,
that whistling wind — incessant.

He walks with his hand on his hatted head.
And he sways with the rays that light him.

He travels in a straight line.
That curves on him.

He turns around. And comes to a halt.
He’s got a glass eye.
Blue, his color of choice.

He stands there, like maybe he’s
forgotten something.
But he doesn’t walk back.
Or go anywhere.

He just stands there, still. With
his glass eye and his runaway hat.
That heeds to the wind.

It howls.

K.A. Wright was born and raised in Ohio, and spent her time between inner-city and rural poverty, giving her work fresh flavor and a signature dose of reality while still maintaining a level of sardonic whimsy. Having dealt with mental illness, both in herself and her immediate family, a lot of her writing comes from a perspective of understanding and a desire to tear down the tabooed walls surrounding mental illness.

storm at a funeral

Just before this there are the dark clouds
At the window sill, my tea steeps
Cold steps out from behind steam
I think of lace on gram’aw’s table
Then
Sheets of rain
Gray damask and linen curtains
a cough clearing the air in an empty parlor
blue skies outside, cruel joke

A.C. Dongo was born in Paris, grew up in California, and resides in New York.

Hills

we ran hard for the hills
thinking they were mountains
trenches of the unknown lurking
the crisp air vivifying all
burning our fears
we had no choice

standing tall with dire illusive dreams
on overlaid cotton candy clouds

the musty sight of dreadful ghosts
ignited our footsteps like fleeting fireflies

we shouted and the wistful winds replied
to the echoes of our heave-hoing hearts

we ran hard for the hills
thinking they were mountains
stupendously slipping on pebbles.

Lisa Poff is a single mom of two children—one with a rare medically complex condition. Writing poetry makes Lisa happy, and she hopes her readers feel a connection in this condition called living. Her poetry has been published in the anthology Stories That Need to Be Told, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, Runcible Spoon, Ghost City Review, and is forthcoming in the I Am Strength anthology.

Your Word

I want to curl up
in your words
like a cat on a book,
playing with them a bit
before savoring them.

Words.
What are they?
Letters on a page,
sounds jumbled together
catapulting from mouths.

I wonder what will
make the words taste good,
and decide it’s the vowels
that are sweeter in the mouth.

Words.
I shall have them for dinner
with cloth napkins
and fine silver,
respecting their diligence.

I will swallow and digest
your desire to give me words—
while I wish to give you myself.

Mr. Quarrell was born in 1946, in Springfield, Massachusetts. He has so far survived public schools, community college, and university (his baccalaureate degree is in English but written in Latin), the US Air Force, and various employment. He lives and writes in New Hampshire.

Doctor Said It Kill Me, Didn’t Say When

“What are you doing now?” he said.

“Nothing.”

“Well cut it out. The floor’s vibrating.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, then grimaced. He picked up his tweezers and rotated the model about a quarter-turn clockwise. “Honest-to-god,” he muttered, picking up a tiny section of yardarm.

“Honest to Pete,” she murmured, “honest Abe, no honestly, honesty’s not even a policy,” she chanted.

He put the piece of yardarm and tweezers down on the table and pushed the green visor back off his forehead. “I’ll bet it didn’t take them this long to build the real one,” he said.

She sat on her heels beside his table and looked up into his face. “They didn’t have me,” she purred. “No one has me except you.”

“What luck,” he said. He stood shakily and stretched. “Ouch,” he said, and limped toward the kitchen. “Wanna beer?” He reached up into the cupboard.

She stood up too, and conquered a reluctant knee, then followed him. “I do,” she said. “I do, I do, and pretzels too.”

“Bibbity-bobbity-boo,” he said as he popped two naked bottles free of their caps and held one out to her.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Just taste it.”

“It’s very dark.”

“Like my soul.”

“Oh bullshit,” and she sipped. “Very nice,” she said. “Cold fermented, no hops to speak of, not too much ‘lasses.” She sipped again. “Maybe eight percent?”

“Nine-and-a-half.”

“Yummy,” she said, “even better. Quickly shit-faced, and so to bed.” She took a longer sip.

“Never on beer, m’dear.”

“I happen to know we have no madeira, m’dear,” she said. They laughed together.

ffff

The wheezing woke her, even from down the hall, even through the doors he’d closed. Her robe was not quite on when she reached the little bedroom he’d used as a study since their son grew up. She stood in the hall, listening through the closed door for a moment. Then she opened the door and said, “This time it’s 911 for sure.”

He looked up but didn’t move his forearms from his knees, stayed bent double, leaning far forward, just his butt resting in the big stuffed chair. He shook his head. “-t’s ok,” he whispered, “it’ll pass.”

“So’ll you,” she said softly, “and soon if you don’t take care of that.”

“-s nothing,” he whispered. “I’m ok.”

ffff

A few hours later she looked up as the young doctor came through the door carrying a folder and papers. “Is he ok?”

“No, he’s not,” said the doctor, “but he will be. This time. How long has he been like this?”

She looked down. “A couple of years; … maybe five.”

“And he’s…” the doctor looked at the chart, “seventy-two?”

“Just,” she said.

“Doesn’t smoke?”

“Used to.”

The doctor nodded and scribbled on a sheet of paper. He looked at his watch, then looked at her. “Well it won’t kill him in a hurry,” he said, “but it’ll surely take a lot of the fun out of his life. He’s lucky he has you. You can go in.” And the doctor stepped away toward the nurse’s station.

She stood still, alone, looking down the corridor toward the swinging doors. “Lucky,” she whispered, and started toward them.