Andrew Hemmert
Accidental Prayer

Andrew Hemmert - Accidental Prayer

Poetry
Andrew Hemmert is a sixth-generation Floridian living in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Bat City Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Mid-American Review, North… Read more »
John Sibley Williams
Birds of Prey

John Sibley Williams - Birds of Prey

Poetry
John Sibley Williams is the author of As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize, 2019), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press, 2019), Disinheritance, and Controlled… Read more »
Robert Hahn
Called Back

Robert Hahn - Called Back

Poetry
Robert Hahn is a poet, translator, and essayist. The poem in this issue, “Called Back,” is from his new manuscript, a narrative sequence of poems entitled Afterlife. Five books of his poetry have… Read more »
Gisèle Lewis
Driving with Refugees

Gisèle Lewis - Driving with Refugees

Fiction
Gisèle Lewis is a native Bostonian transplanted to sweltering Florida. When not ferrying her children to extracurricular activities, she spends every free moment writing or reading. Her secondary… Read more »
Analía Villagra
Implantation

Analía Villagra - Implantation

Fiction
Analía Villagra's stories have appeared in Raleigh Review, The Briar Cliff Review, Water~Stone Review, and New Ohio Review, where she won the 2018 fiction contest judged by Mary Gaitskill. She posts… Read more »
Rick Mulkey
Mingo County Men

Rick Mulkey - Mingo County Men

Poetry
Rick Mulkey is the author of five books and chapbooks, including Ravenous: New & Selected Poems, Toward Any Darkness, Bluefield Breakdown, and Before the Age of Reason. Previous and current work… Read more »
Angela Voras-Hills
On Earth as It Is in Heaven

Angela Voras-Hills - On Earth as It Is in Heaven

Poetry
Angela Voras-Hills lives with her family in Milwaukee, WI. Her first book, Louder Birds (Pleiades 2020), was chosen by Traci Brimhall for the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize. Other poems have… Read more »
Courtney Craggett
Ordinary

Courtney Craggett - Ordinary

Fiction
Courtney Craggett is the author of Tornado Season (Black Lawrence Press, 2019). Her short stories appear in The Pinch, Mid-American Review, Washington Square Review, CutBank, and Booth, among others.… Read more »
Marc Alan Di Martino
Runaway

Marc Alan Di Martino - Runaway

Poetry
Marc Alan Di Martino grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Rattle, The New Yorker, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Verse-Virtual, Palette Poetry, and… Read more »
Brian Koukol
Serotiny

Brian Koukol - Serotiny

Fiction
Brian Koukol, raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles, now makes his home among the salt breezes and open spaces of California's Central Coast. A lifelong battle with muscular dystrophy has informed the… Read more »
Gabriela Denise Frank
Tending Generations

Gabriela Denise Frank - Tending Generations

Creative Nonfiction
A native of Detroit, Michigan, Gabriela Denise Frank is the author of CivitaVeritas: An Italian Fellowship Journey. Her writing has appeared most recently in True Story, Hunger Mountain, Bayou, Crab… Read more »
Nina Badzin
The Air in Here

Nina Badzin - The Air in Here

Fiction
Nina Badzin is a Minneapolis-based writer. Her stories and essays have appeared in Compose Journal, The Ilanot Review, Matchbook Literary Magazine, Midwestern Gothic, Modern Loss, On Being, Pedestal… Read more »
Jeff Hoffmann
Too Far from Spot

Jeff Hoffmann - Too Far from Spot

Fiction
Jeff Hoffmann’s writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in The Sun, New Madrid, Harpur Palate, The Roanoke Review, Booth, Barely South, and Lunch Ticket, among others. He won The Madison… Read more »
Caitlin Killion
Transformation

Caitlin Killion - Transformation

Fiction
Caitlin Killion lives in Santiago, Chile. She holds an MFA from The New School and a BA from Georgetown University. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Aquifer: The Florida Review, The… Read more »
Kyle Stolcenberg
Twenty Miles to Toad River

Kyle Stolcenberg - Twenty Miles to Toad River

Fiction
Kyle Stolcenberg is an MFA student at Southern Illinois University. This is his first published story. Read more »

Birds of Prey

John Sibley Williams

Flags parade. Voices char. All fires hurry to ash, back to a silent gray earth, back to bullets pressed into a boy’s palm; a choice that is not really a choice at all. Just another slow-moving dawn & birds of prey break it like bones & everything seems worthless in its own way; brief & therefore wondrous. Men with eyes like windows with all the lights shut off & their own dead to attend to or atone for or both & a land that’s trying so hard to speak with its tongue cut out.
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