The earth tallies our losses: abacusof ancient bone emerges out of rock, layers of snow compress deep in glacial lakes:blank blue ledger, millennia of falling.Even now fault-lines fracture canyons, gougeslike scores in a bed-post. So much passageis documentation, our...

my new face, for one. But what a relief not to have to bethe pretty one any more,begging for love,and to have this ravaged mug,the man of experience, the worldlyno-shit look, and with it,even a pot belly.though I'll admit that with a pot bellyit's better...

Want I’ve been thinking and writing about how womenare coached—cajoled, shamed, guilted—into practicing gratitude asyet one more desirable character trait for the fairer sex. (Read: as yetanother way of telling us to sit down).An entire industry has made a business of...

THE VIOLENCE ALMANAC, by Miah Jeffra (2021, Black Lawrence Press, New York, NY, 180 pages, $19.95, 978-1-62557-836-5) Reviewed by Derek Berry The Violence Almanac Centers An American Obsession with Brutality...

We're so happy to have Tucson artist Saraiya Ruano Kanning for the Issue 14 cover. Saraiya is also a short story writer and musician. Her story "Awakening" appeared in Issue 6. The new issue will probably appear in June. It features Kimberly Ann Priest, Lisa Lewis,...

Discreet Conversations Just Below the Surface Go straight. Do not turn. Where you areis neither right nor left. Left is where you leftyour children, not on some broad stretchof highway, but home. Right is the parking loton the outskirts of Vegas. Best to go...

James Wesley Clark left this world January 28, 2021, in Arnold, Maryland, where he was being treated for complications of Alzheimer's disease. He was a poet, journalist, bookseller and collector, chef, and family historian. He was also long known and loved for the...

Island of Cows-São Miguel, Azores Primavera tries to cross past the wireto reach the fallen golden nêsperas.I stroke her head. She nibbles my clothes. HerMaya-blue irises beam through my heart.She licks my cheek with her warm, softsandpaper tongue. She and her pals...