There are dogs next door, in the house to the right of Carol Anne’s. And not just one or two. She’s tried counting them based on the different barks, but she always loses track. When a siren whines down the road, they all start howling, almost screaming. It’s as if they’re mourning something, perhaps their… Read More “Carol Anne” by Kelly Curran
The seasons had passed seamlessly in Los Angeles with a gentleman’s handshake of ten degrees difference between them. Spring had warmed to summer, had warmed to fall, and now we were here having surpassed the crest of the heat in Southern California. The climate fires had all been put out, but the air was still… Read More “Will it Hurt?” by Lindsey Anthony-Bacchione
When I close the screen, I feel the light softly go out in the room where your pixelated cheeks just blushed for me. I wonder if, all the way on the other side of your universe, when closing your laptop, do you feel the sounds of our instant disconnection? Feeling screenshot in isolation, with… Read More “Verses Almost Sent to a Lingering Flame” by Adrian Cepeda
How overjoyed I was, to hear her squawking stop so suddenly. She’d boarded after me, birdcage in hand. Then, after the ascent, three squawks. Maybe two. Anyone on a plane, I’ll tell you, can’t stand the sound. I’d heard of puppies dying overhead, the change of pressure too much for their little lungs, but birds?… Read More “Flight Cage” by Maya Nordine
Who’s to say what makes a moment. Is it to be found in the glow or graying plumes reaching out to caress absence or air?[…]… Read More “Piano Forte” by Lisa Croce
The first time I met God, I was draped in a rough, elephant-colored bathrobe, worn soles on my slippers.[…]… Read More “Portrait of the Mundane” by Jake Bailey
Bears don’t know the difference
between a fish that’s mostly dead
and a fish that jumps into a ready mouth. The waters part for a man of God. The waters part for a man with no God.[…]… Read More “Portrait of a Blackhole” by Jake Bailey
The words are mostly water and float easily between logs and silt, weaving their way into something understandable. I never agreed
to the terms of the contract, my heart a balloon loosed from fingers reddened to white.[…]… Read More “Severance” by Jake Bailey
It is awake in the chill morning air, dripping cold rainwater off of its snout to the cement below. It sees the stretch of parked cars, the fence ringing The Building which breaks only to force visitors past its stony paws, the sway of trees in the distance — all of this is discernible within… Read More “Yang” by Helen Doremus
I face myself, the thing convincing as a face can be, although it breaks where it should mend in laughter. Do you believe in me though you should believe in nothing, where it hurts a little, that time of life that stuns into you, so you see the future, where you stand guard, eager to… Read More “Death Ruins It” by Caley O’Dwyer
Sentience Literary Journal 