Explaining to My Nephews How the Lake Turns Over
I don’t like that they’re headed down two highways
in opposite directions, away from me, their cars
packed to the gills.
Luci Huhn
… Read the rest
Katie Condon
Who Here Has Heard of Ether?
The meadow was like a child,
hip-height and wild. The moths
had no hope for holding
onto any shadow, let alone their own,
which
Elane Kim
Transit
I want more small kindnesses:
glass stained in every direction,
the windows stacked tall,
a looping stop. Pick a side already: the sky
or the sea. More rain or
Tamas Panitz
Within a Secret Cloud
Where to grow my orchid that will last for a thousand years …
big decisions take many tiny minds– like Dracula in his den
my persecutors
Jessica Guzman
Post-Storm Assessment
I spray X on my front door.
I set the table, plastic
on plastic, secured by stone. Two
days after the hurricane, I grill
freezer burned flanks
Conor Bracken
Firstborn
A day after the afterbirth’s been rubbed
off your head (“like a coconut
with injured sentience,” dark-haired
and howling) we call you
Everett, which means, we learn, brave
as
Brett Hanley
Texas-Louisiana Border Dive Bar
This place is a metaphor for my dysthymia.
If everything beautiful is born of wreck,
then take me to the salvage yard of my affect.
I
Guest Editor Tomás Q. Morín: A Special Feature
"When West Branch invited me to be a guest editor, I told Josh I wanted the story if it was still free. This time, to my absolute delight, it was."
Jeanne Larsen
Shadows Rippling on Bodhisattva Run
2 hundred thousand souls all still
in a rush downstream from Hiroshima.
Over the gorge,
5 bats wheel
like the ones carved in a temple
Julie Marie Wade
Largest mammal on Earth … Surely the man at the circus must have mentioned it as he lifted us into the howdah one by one. I was front rider in … Read the rest
