Waste

October 2021 | poetry

When I think of heaven, I see trash:

Broken bottles, leaking Freon, used notebooks,

Thanksgiving scraps, industrial dross, ash

Of lives that rot and leach into the brooks

And streams that feed the river, then the sea.

Yet, when I conceive a perfect hell, it looks

Unpeopled, manicured, fresh, foolproof, each tree

Equal, sidewalks flat, no black oil stain

On any gray driveway. Loveless and pure.

Why, then, am I so ashamed of my pain?

I haul my grief in my sinful junk cart,

As if I could secure peace from this vain,

Broken, human life. No, I live, not apart

From death, my pardon pawned, deep of my heart.

Richard Stimac

Richard Stimac writes poetry about growing up in the Rustbelt. Richard published poetry in Faultline, Havik (2021 Best in Show for Poetry), Michigan Quarterly Review, Penumbra, Salmon Creek Journal, Wraparound South, and others, and an article on Willa Cather in The Midwest Quarterly.

Tanya L. Young

October 2021 | visual art

Ravenous

Tanya L. Young

Tanya L. Young is a Washington based artist and writer. Her work has been featured in New York Quarterly, Jeopardy Magazine and Stonecoast Review.

Fortieth Birthday

October 2021 | poetry

Just ten years ago, I felt young,

before that, not old enough.

Before now, geologists say,

 

there was a before, a before before

when ice, white cedar trees, and dark

brown salt deposits lined the coast.

 

When the waves pound the shore,

I hear the churning, churning

of saltwater like the buckled inner-

 

workings of the mind.

The surging of desires that wash

ashore, recede, and reemerge

 

like a hand extending

and then retracting itself mid-air.

On the boardwalk, a couple shares

 

a scone. Ahead, a child carves

a moat around a sandcastle. Above,

the seagulls seem lost—

 

they throw their bodies into the air

any which way, skim the water’s

surface, then take flight, as if to say:

 

Never mind or not today. I close

my eyes: salt turns to sugar in my mouth.

The January sun stings

 

my eyelids amber. Beneath this layer

is another layer: of cedar, peat,

marsh. Two teenagers giggle

 

with lattes. One young, the other

even younger. How many mornings,

like this one, have I already forgotten?

 

A Labrador chases a tennis ball

into the water and flashes its teeth.

I grin back. Day, too, froths at the mouth.

 

Shannon K. Winston

Shannon K. Winston’s poems have appeared in Crab Creek Review, The Night Heron Barks, RHINO, Rust + Moth, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and several times for the Best of the Net. Her poetry collection, The Girl Who Talked to Paintings, was published by Glass Lyre Press in 2021. She currently lives in Princeton, New Jersey. Find her at shannonkwinston.com.

The Pawn Shop on Putnam Ave.

October 2021 | nonfiction

The pawnshop faced the traffic of Putnam Avenue. The people who went inside usually ducked their heads and moved with quick movements, but my dad liked to go in and wander around and buy things like old VCRs and televisions and dishwashers – a purchase he would forever regret after our house became infested with roaches. But Dad’s biggest regret came not from purchasing from the pawnshop but from selling his most prized possession to it.

I don’t know what lawsuit or worker’s compensation claim landed my dad with the money to buy that Gibson Les Paul. What I do remember is him giving each of us kids $100 when the windfall came down. I held the money in my hand, vowing to save it, but over the course of a week bought $100 worth of pickles instead because those Big Papa pickles were the shit.

He had guitars before but none as beautiful as that dark green Gibson. I watched him open its case and run his hands over the red velvet interior before picking it up and stroking its strings. One thrum and a dreamy sort of faraway look passed over his face.

Dad loved that guitar but pawned it on the regular because on the regular, we were broke. He always managed to round up the cash to get it out of pawn before they kept it. Then one time, he didn’t, and when we drove by the pawnshop, his Gibson was sitting in the window with a for sale sign slung around its neck. One day we drove by again, and the Gibson was gone.

Each time Dad drove by the pawnshop, he cringed a little until eventually, he wouldn’t look at its windows at all.

April Pride Sharp

April Sharp is an English instructor at Felbry College School of Nursing, and a graduate of the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts program. She often writes of her childhood growing up in Southeast Ohio. Her work has been featured in The Devil Strip, Rubber Top Review, and Appalachia Bare. When not writing she can be spotted stomping through the woods with her two dogs.

Jim Ross

October 2021 | visual art

Black Sand Beach

Jim Ross

Jim Ross jumped into creative pursuits in 2015 after a rewarding career in public health research. With a graduate degree from Howard University, in six years he’s published nonfiction, poetry, and photography in over 150 journals and anthologies on four continents. Publications include 580 Split, Bombay Gin, Burningword, Columbia Journal, Hippocampus, Ilanot Review, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Lunch Ticket, The Atlantic, The Manchester Review, and Typehouse. Recent photo essays include Barren, Kestrel, Litro, New World Writing, So It Goes, and Wordpeace. A nonfiction piece led to a role in the documentary limited series, “I, Sniper.” Jim and his wife—parents of two health professionals and grandparents of five preschoolers—split their time between city and mountains.