march 5th

Mar 5, 2021

hello lovelies <3

first, a correction from last week:

Arthur Klepchukov‘s “Imperfect Balconies” in Nevermore Journal was mistakenly listed under nonfiction, it is, in fact, a flash fiction piece.

another week has passed, and the final episode of WandaVision is now available. I’m glad I have this wonderful writing to replace those weekly episodes as my primary source of serotonin. anyway, onto the recommendations

Poetry

Chris Cocca’s “Stop Me if You’ve Heard this Before, Super Ego” in Daily Drunk Magazine1
“A well-meaning husband
frustrated, suburban
a middle-aged husk
(a real shell of himself)”
Marina Carreira’s “Dead Things and Where to Put Them” in The Night Heron Barks
“So much to bury. So much lifelessness
carried in the pit of your belly, the bulge

of your back, the calluses of your feet.”
Samuel A. Adeyemi’s “Every Gen Z Poem is About the Body” in Eremite
“so I lay bare on the table, performing autopsy
on myself, in search of a verse—some sweet

poetry wetting my lungs.”
January Gill O’Neil’s “Elation” in the Kenyon Review
“their long trunks turned white
from too little light. Tolerant trees.”
Elijah Hayes’ “Pressing on Toward Canaan” in The Boiler
“I used to think I fell too far down a hole like an acorn and would never sprout, or would sprout backward, die young and unshaven, pot-bellied in the second bedroom.”
Christen Noel Kauffman’s “A Body Looking Over the Edge” in The West Review
“When we drive to the Grand Canyon, you don’t want to hear
how it was formed, the science of 5 million years of the same thing,

a river of persistent belief.”
Shangyang Fang’s “Utterance of a Folding Fan” in Hobart
“mayflies
live for descendants : the white
gown on the boat plays a flute”
Jared Povanda’s “The Light Falls Through” in Janus
“I think of thin bones torquing and the capriciousness of cancer. Of lungs crying like seagulls.”
Danielle P. Williams’ “Bear in mind that death is a drum” in Kissing Dynamite
“The rhythm of your
Life bolting from itself”
Natalie Marino’s “Songbird” in Hummingbird Magazine
“Even the sycamores outside
the window acknowledge your end”

Fiction

Xueyi Zhou’s “Son-land” in Waxwing
“But in that month she smelled. Even after she requested her sister to bring her daffodils. The smell still lingered in her room even after it was repainted and refurnished, as if the walls had been pickled through by that smell.”
Matthew Burnside’s “Infinity Paradise Oblivion Cubicle” in trampset
“When you’ve finally had enough to to the designated vending machine, the one on the corner of Sidereal & Main, take out the little slip of paper—the one you pocketed from that strangely glowing misfortune cookie with the unique alphanumeric sixty-five-string-long combination.”
Andrea Salvador’s “Swimming Away From the End of the World” in subliminal
“I am reminded of my father’s paranoia each time I open up my mailbox. No matter how quickly I run to retrieve my mail, the result is always the same: water spilling out from the box, already having drenched the package.”
Lauren Garretson-Atkinson’s “The Mud Path” in Joyland
“Dark leaves were set aflame, passed between her legs and over her head until a light smoke encircled her body, the scent like soil after a heavy rain.”
Troy James Weaver’s “What Should I Call This” in Southwest Review
“I hold a church inside me. It is quiet and lonely. There are true moments of peace there. And when there are disturbances, when my heart crackles too loudly, I pray her tomb will flood into me and muffle the noise.”

Nonfiction

Jessica Franken’s “Circle of Fourths” in phoebe
“G-flat major: Tannic red wine scraping your tongue dry. Star-nosed moles. Thunderstorms and the electrified air that heralds them. Umami. All your teenage crushes were tattooed and tortured souls. The major closest to minor. Portal between flats and sharps.”
Nicole Zhao’s “Say I’m Sorry Say I Love You” in Apogee Journal
“I entered the word “depression” into the Google Translate app. Yōuyù zhèng, I confessed, showing Papa the screen. Wǒ yǒu yōu yù zhèng. I told him I’d just seen the doctor for it. I showed him my new medicine bottle. “
Larissa Pham’s “On Running” in Granta
“The next day I’d be sore, my calves and thighs aching. I never seemed to run quite far enough for my body to get used to it – the beating of the pavement.”
L.I. Henley’s “Foldable Essay with Wet Bee” in Smokelong Quarterly
“A song for hellos, a song for goodbyes, for rain, blackbirds and ashes, the clock striking one. Sugar and medicine, the saltcellars of future loss, doled out by tiny metal spoons.”
Brenda Miller’s “Regeneration” in Creative Nonfiction
“As I look, the dead son’s chromosomes morph into the shape of a tree of life. The background: a flurry of stains, amniotic, smudged fluids of birth. She has stitched a recording, a threaded calligraphy. I imagine her at this work, bent over the needle and thread for years, toiling to inscribe her son on the surface of the world.”