GASTROPODA

A hot summer day, my head a wet melon. As I sip cranberry juice on ice Theodore Roethke opens the screen door and sits beside me. For someone who has been dead for decades, he’s as articulate as ever. I ask him how his poems are coming along. He says a few are almost in bloom. I have some of my own that have buds— sometimes they blacken and die. I offer him juice. He says he’d prefer a drink. Oddly, I can offer none as I haven’t gotten to the liquor store yet. He p

We run like racehorses: press ourselves tight to the rail, push against the stream of traffic, blow strong and heavy. A check on the rein to keep us steady. On the turn I slip, lose a hindleg to the thin gleam of ice which surfaces the mud. Slow down! My heart thuds, last night’s dream working itself loose like a shoe: a wild horse in my house, a biter, untamed and uncouth. May Grier is from and lives in London, UK. She has had poetry published in Ink Sweat and Tears and The

When I consider moving, I think how I can always take a quick detour to gaze upon a body of water. If I’m feeling contemplative, there’s a small creek that runs through the neighborhood. I gaze over the railing to watch dragonflies and listen to the murmuring of running water. If I’m lucky, I’m joined by a few sunbathing cats. When I want more of a disruption, I walk towards the intersection of Lake and Lincoln. Especially after a big rainstorm, I can hear a dull roar as I ap

Our lives packed into storage boxes, the heat wave lasting all week and into next, moths feasting opportunistically on my sweaters like lye burning through the valleys of a topographical map, the drip drip drip of it eating into carpet fibers, my tongue unable to find a home in my mouth, you’re gonna get caught eventually, but maybe that’s kinda the point—it's nice to know someone’s watching over you, even if it’s just the loss prevention guy at Target. Hana Damon-Tollenaere

Microorganisms bathed in an array of stars twinkling gas warming my body as if I too am a constellation ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ranch If ranch dressing were a place, it would be the opposite of a place— it wouldn’t be a farm, or a ranch even, but a warm home on a warm day, when the heat outside is cleaner, more forgiving than the sticky inside where forever a cool breeze is less artificial than air con

Waiting Burnt ochre sunshine is grazing our shoulders as we sit on the steps of the Victor Emmanuel building in Rome waiting for our tour bus. Impatience fights with tiredness as we wonder about the delay. The hours tick by, the years. Decades. Sometimes I’m still sitting there. Transfixed Today I have put on happiness (after many weeks) like a new dress. Clean, light and hanging smoothly. I am fit for the ball and I’m sure my dress won’t powder at midnight and the mic

It happens when you’re thinking about other things. It’s been this way for almost everyone, and now it’s your turn. Some sleepless...

After her divorce, Marie began to suspect she had a book in her. She lay on her back and poked at her stomach. The book was small, like a...

scroll stops, heart drops there you are interrupting my feed four years passed, in a flash you’re the same why wouldn’t you be? mr....

At the softball game, the mothers band together, the fathers together. It’s tradition. No one violates tradition, unless the spillover of...

As we shuffle into class on Wednesday, near-sighted Nellie spies a shiny golden apple on our teacher, Mr. Ward’s, desk. The apple has a...

Autumn, Part I A Golden Shovel after Nora Ephron’s “You’ve Got Mail” Midnight, the bed in Milan, you and I Still in our shoes would ...

A little liquorice packs quite a punch Insidious sweetness with a salty sting Black blissful oozing with a silken crunch A tooth decay...

Pied and light-footed, known by its two shades. White among corvids, dark among doves. Nesting in a ribcage of mud and twigs. Never...

Suffer with me. However fast we Run we will never Reach the sea. Suffer with me. This is a strange Place, a hard Place full of Sadness...

A man stood on the rooftop of his 20-floor apartment building, knowing himself to be full of borders. He had ridden the train home from...

It slides down like regret, coated in the aftertaste of another sleepless night, and I wonder if pain is just another way to measure...

It was the day she’d gone to the beach with Rob she was bitten, on that third date. It had to be. She hadn’t thought she liked him enough...

When My Dentist Tells Me I Might Lose a Tooth I think Finally—this is the perspective I’ve been looking for . Not the tall guy with the...

Beckoning in silver bark that defies the spring snow, She shows me tender unfurling catkin cascading from her skin, preparing for seed, ...