We Always Break Up Near Water

July 2024 | fiction

  1. We sit on the banks of the river on the last day of summer. The drought has left only a trickle down the center of the dry river bed, so there is no sound of water to distract us from the words hanging between us. Nothing will be final until one of us walks away.
  2. We arrive at a pool party hosted by your coworker. After starving myself to fit into a bikini, I need only three watery cocktails to trip and fall into the pool. You leave, embarrassed, and your boss has to drive me home.
  3. We stand near the confluence of two rivers in the middle of the country as we roadtrip from one coast to the other. Silence for miles, followed by sharp words stabbing each other until we’re hollowed out. The next day we’re overly polite, as if we just met.
  4. We keep returning to each other, a bit out of love, but mostly out of fear. We’re more miserable apart than we are together, we tell ourselves, holding space until someone better comes along.
  5. We end for good standing next to the ocean. Giving up like a bloody boxer who can’t take another round. The tears you try to hide taste like the sea as I kiss you goodbye.

 

Jen McConnell

Jen McConnell has published prose and poetry in more than forty literary magazines, and her work has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Her current work can be found in Does it Have Pockets?, Bridge Eight, and the tiny journal. Her first story collection, “Welcome, Anybody,” was published in 2012. Learn more at jenmcconnell.com.

Lesser Dimensions

July 2024 | poetry

He did not say you were a crash survivor

Only that you postponed

Death

In an era between

Earth seconds

On a planet where

Hold-onto things

Shatter

And re-form, like something less human

More nimble

While the candy-store gangsters

And digital priests

Tell us otherwise

And so on, etc.,

When we returned in our sharp suits

We shed them,

our hot bodies tattooed, dotted,

like code,

Our old robes stained and dismissed,

lost to lovingly find gold and fight the fire,

your pockets were bulging, my son

and dry leaves in the wind outside a distance palace are twitching

or would you call it dancing?

while we need to waste another one,

and we need to try again

don’t think again about the birds and the prophets

especially the birds,

who have stopped singing their lovely songs about lesser dimensions

 

Joseph Charles Mollica

Joseph Charles Mollica is a writer originally from Queens, NY.

Edie Noesser

July 2024 | visual art

Cemetery

 

Edie Noesser

Edie Noesser lives on Balboa Island, California. She is interested in nature, bird watching, and urban scenes, bringing her camera along as much as possible.

The Mother Between Us

July 2024 | fiction

Grandpa would say go outside I can’t hear myself think and if the air was clear and bright the mother between us said run, let your lungs gobble that good air, get your Vitamin D, and sometimes the air was thick with low-lying fog by the river, and the mother was shrouded, warning of slippery rocks, stray dogs, of Mr. Bob—who couldn’t live near a school—and sometimes the air was searing and the mother shimmered, drew us to the shade, silent while we bickered—having long understood that we did it for sport—and sometimes the air was sharp as icicles and the mother between us said put your scarf over your nose and mouth and sometimes the air held something sulfurous from downriver factories or—worse—that funk from the rendering plant and she said go inside, go drink some water, go help your Grandpa for a change you know he does his best, he’s just doing his best.

 

Michelle Morouse

Michelle Morouse’s work has appeared recently in Vestal Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Gemini, Midwest Review, Prose Online, Bending Genres, Best Microfiction, The MacGuffin, and Unbroken. She is a Detroit area pediatrician and a Pushcart nominee.

The Doctor’s Office

July 2024 | poetry

There is nothing more that we can do.

His mouth closed firmly like a window sash.

His face composed like laid brick.

Her every nerve thrumming.

 

His mouth closed firmly like a window sash.

Her fingers, face muscles, pudenda alert.

Her every nerve thrumming.

So it would be now.

 

Her fingers, face muscles, pudenda alert.

His cup, “World’s Greatest Dad” on his desk.

So it would be now.

No more tomorrow.

 

His cup, “World’s Greatest Dad” on his desk.

Her husband’s disembodied hand on her thigh.

No more tomorrow.

How will it be?

 

Her husband’s disembodied hand on her thigh.

The degrees floating on the wall behind.

How will it be?

There will be nothing.

 

The degrees floating on the wall behind.

The pores on his nose looming large.

There will be nothing.

And there is no God.

 

The pores on his nose looming large.

His white coat like hardened snow.

There is no God and

There is nothing more that we can do.

 

Elizabeth Hill

Elizabeth was a Finalist in the 2022 Rattle Poetry Contest, with her poem also appearing as Poem of the Day on February 20, 2023. She was nominated for the 2023 Pushcart Prize by Last Stanza Poetry Journal. Her poetry has been published in 34th Parallel Magazine, Boomerlit, SAND, and Catamaran, among other journals. She is a retired Administrative Law Judge who was responsible for suits between learning-disabled children and the school system. She lives in Harlem, NYC with her husband and two irascible cats.