Issue Two Winter/Spring 2014 Loraine Bond Dalton Day M.G. Martin MF McPherson Jessica Nicole Hinves D.E. Kern Ryan Chang Jeremy Radin Shastri Akella Roberto F. Santiago Kara Krauze Valentina Cano Johnny Magdaleno Sara J. Grossman

Osage My father never called my mother darling as she sat darning, the needle clicking against the light bulb used to shape the heel that mirrored her bloated belly, while thrusts and jabs pushed against her straining dress. He simply slipped quietly into the hot Wyoming night leaving behind a woman forever troubled, by the

With A Bright Room The body is on fire. What do you do? Owls are leaving their shadows to dance and peck and weep. Smoke is already rising. Already packing its bags for the next train. The bags are packed with what it remembers: Breaking a bone by jumping too high and too far. Losing

da hawaiian supah man come, come inside. i like talk story. dis da story of hawaiian supah man. long time ago, back before da haole man went sail da ships to da ʻāina, had one little keiki, one small baby name israel kamakawiwoʻole. da elders found him deep inside waipiʻo valley. he was being nursed

  The Body More Than Raiment  In the high, clear daylight, Liza Dixfield stood staring at the sunken row where her carrots had been.  She calculated, from the dimpled hill, that she had lost at least a hundred carrots from this side of the garden. “This here, this is my wit’s end,” she muttered as

   Mark 10:14 Some fathers would have doubted there was room for a growing boy in such a cuddy, niche at the knees, as where I huddled making roads of fractures crossing leather shoes. A crumb trail marked the entryway to the cave where I colored stick-figure families with salmon skin and read “Cars and

Physiognomy of a Dog It’s come to my attention that a rumor, of which I am the sole authority to its verity, has been pinging through the halls of our fine institution. He, the normal student, M—, enrolled in a program that would take at least one hundred years to complete—this being the exception, established

  The Woman Sings The Song of The Second Tiger My loneliness smokes out of my ear & stands next to my bed, a woman in a cotton dress. The dress makes my loneliness’s breasts look miraculous even though it knows how exhausted I am. A tiger prowls the inside of my hands. The woman

Portrait of Abuela as a Child on Laundry Day Panchita fashions phantom dances out of linen stolen from neighbors’ lines that hammock rainforest sky the tear down and snap of alligator clothespins bite marrow sticky splinters rope and tastes like percussion pushed up against a river stone washboard Panchita presses perfume out of mango peel,

  Damla, The Prisoner The scars on your face Damla they do not look like scars at all but small farm fields dry and barren patches of dirt the last motherly hands to touch you forgot to crumble, smear, then wipe away. The chocolate on your teeth as you say, “imperialism” – will you realize

June Weather   Then I realize that each redbud is in bloom & I am someone else’s sister or brother looking for one anonymous hand to hold beneath this heaving tree, this ragweed sky. What I mean is that it’s Saturday & there are faces in the park that gleam like pasture-grass. How I want