Flitting tails of firebow minnows— lilac fibrils streaked on wheelchair cobble— whipped by the warm pull of august a jug of orchids passes between palms their cups marrowed to bone, indecent gulping against the fold of dusk as if they have yet to live a life of tenderness ……..of shaking...
Crime Victim Assistance Gauntlet
Please indicate the type of crime that occurred (e.g., home invasion, assault). What counts as a crime? What is the exact threshold? What specific dimensions of flesh delineate the parameters of abuse? He started at the feet and hands, and then the arms and legs; con-men know that the more times...
Classic Myths to Read Aloud
In summer the grass turned yellow & long, the light grew its leaves over my arm, we kept plants in the classroom, & once, a bunny rabbit. My mother said to bring it home, & there it stayed, till autumn fell upon our faces like the blood-salt of obligation. I & my sister wandered the...
Zugzwang
The woman smoking meth across from the bodega looks like your sister, so you offer her a pack of cigarettes and forty-three dollars if she’ll pretend to be her for one night. You could afford to pay more, but this is all you have in cash and she takes it. Up close, she looks less like Reed: acne...
The Green Potion and God’s All-Seeing Eyes
Her eyes glow green under obsidian skies She gives the midnight cowboy a silver dollar and he hands her the elixir sealed with wax She tells me that life begins when you open your eyes in the morning She wants to show me the field where the wild horses run while their watcher sleeps Her eyes glow...
The Space Between Words: A Review of jaye simpson’s it was never going to be okay
Reviewed by Namitha Rathinappillai jaye simpson, it was never going to be okay (Nightwood Editions, 2020), 112 pp., $18.95. Shortlisted for the Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers, and the Indigenous Voices Award (2021). In jaye simpson’s debut book, it was never going to be...