ISSUE FIVE, FALL 2011

FICTION

THE OTHER WAY AROUNDby Elizabeth Quinn
My brother-in-law, Bo, just got sent home from Iraq because he got his hand cut off.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR WHAT COMES NEXT by Lori Brack
First, give up everything you thought you knew. Then open your breathless chest and look in.

ARTISTS’ MODELandFIELD DRESSINGby Lea Marshall
At the opening she watches / people murmur before the painting, and out back beneath // the ancient pear tree they exclaim at the towering goddess.

AFTERGLOWby Darren Morris
For some passengers, it’s the first or last / time they will see the city of Richmond, / Virginia, a city completed by its losses / as my entire life has been.

WHEN WE SPEAK OF OLD FRIENDS by Nicholas Reading
It was he // who swam the Wabash from Terre Haute to Lafayette. He lied / for a good story. He was one-hundred and thirty-three still // growing.

THE MARRIAGE BED IN SPRINGby Michael Salcman
This morning, the birds—attentive students / of desire—reset their clocks; the pierced ray / of spring rewinds night and day

THINGS TO FIXby Edd Howarth
I get up in the middle of the night and pee on things. Not sleep walking, sleep peeing. This is a problem. I also have a short temper, but this is another problem for another day.

MAKING SPACEby Libby Walkup
An odd combination of the peach sweet smell of my mother and the tobacco oil hair of my father; my history creates my present 4,000 miles from home under your duvet.