Poetry

by Heaven Santiago She tamps to tame her temper, tampering with silver tools on dull, dead, decaffeinated mornings. She pulls dreadful all-nighters, sticks tricks up her sleeves, and can pull a strong shot of espresso. She takes in vicious insults like barrages of boxing combos or lime-brimmed shots of vodka. She soaks in her rage, to compact like a puck—like a machine would a strong shot of espresso. She yearns to break past some scumbag’s dry advances; The sly try to trespa

by Giuseppe Farina i kept my mothers' kitchen table eight chairs long, solid wood large enough to hold a feast of plates and all of us to sit around sharing food and lives she made bread upon it, sometimes twice a week and Sicilian sweets none of us could duplicate even with her recipes found handwritten in her Sicilian slanted script if i had been born the daughter she had always yearned for could i have learned her secrets, memorized her hands as they mixed, kneaded and bak

by Kristen Baum DeBeasi For Flossie winter’s day — you will not leave my mind all afternoon four years before, I keep your house, my weekend job: face cloths all folded the same direction for your gnarled hands upstairs, houseflies buzz their last, then fall silent in the closet, your shoes right heel inches higher than the left under the eaves, your teacher’s certificate sits yellowed in its frame in autumn, before I leave for college you set out lunch we talk and eat, you s

by Martha Clarkson The Last View Teenager, trying to fall asleep I worried my father would die driving home drunk, crash into the big oak along the speedy median and I’d be stuck with my mother. But when the time came at 94 it was just an undramatic fade huge oxygen tank heaving by the bed, my stepmother asleep on the living room pull-out. I paced the assisted-living halls wandered into in a game room where we’d once played bridge felt-covered card table the thrill of a six-h

by Bryan Franco After he cut off a charred edge of steak: before he bit the first bite, he impaled the steak with a steak knife, which stood at a perfect ninety-degree angle perpendicular to the steak. He imagined himself a Viking on a pillage. The steak was a sentry to a castle he breached. The knife was a sword that had last belonged to his great-uncle. He swiped the sliver of charred meat into au jus pooling in the plate then dipped it into mashed potatoes peppered with bl

by Stephen Siciliano Apricot blossom and Spicy Rose Mint champagne through Your heart It flows. Coffee smoke comes a whisperin’ up. Let me drink from that Lovin’ Cup. Been Skipping down a Peppermint Mile waitin’ on your Vanilla Smile. Keepin’ an eye on your Butterscotch Clock touchin’ my lips to a Candy Apple Rock. Darlin' let me taste some more of them flavors you keep in that Sensations Store That Hickory Whiskey over Black Cherry Ice Chocolate Raisins and Cinnamon Rice Str