after F. Isabel Campoy I come from a fledgling suburb in a state that lost its mind with beauty but coped by building tract homes and strip malls. Where I come from, everyone calls out to friends from patios studded with braziers across yards littered with bicycles sandboxes and panting mutts. Cookouts are a seasonal […]
Insomnia Yellow jackets burrow for winter in the exterior brick that edges the second story window. Inside that bedroom with its indistinct hum, sleep eludes me. Who can say whether bees, the noise of cars on a distant highway, or some machinery of my brain that refuses to power down at night? In bed, I […]
Even with a receipt I can’t return The day bought on a whim— Careless of time being spent. Buyer’s remorse wakes The following day, a hangover Rising from relentless binge-buying. “I couldn’t help myself.” So says contrition laid on When the mistake’s made Visible. The size and color, All wrong. Why take it from the […]
Above Albuquerque wind-still the sky holds balloons like lacrima Below inside this temporary room your voice cuts strings no longer tied. David Morgan O’Connor is from a small village on Lake Huron. After many nomadic years, he is based in Albuquerque, where a short story collection progresses. He contributors monthly to; The Review Review and […]
Note: Apology Accepted was written in response to the image here, created by Tony Curran. Yeah, that’s myself [sic] in outline, hunched over the screen, black eyemask fashioned from re- gret and the way that autocorrect’s clumsy changes […]
Every time I lift the lid on the bin by the stairs to the units above, and upend my basket of recyclables, I hear the voice of my ex-husband’s lover. At a dinner party, months before I learned her real role in our lives, I turned to her amid the laughter and the clinking, and […]
Commandment On a West Texas highway between Plainview and Lubbock white text on a black billboard proclaims CONTROL YOUR MIND, OR THE DEVIL WILL! urging passing drivers and passengers to exert self-control, search souls flee from temptation banish impure thoughts refrain from coveting thy neighbor’s truck think righteous thoughts in the service of fear Exploring […]
There’s a circle of PETA protesters picketing my castle because I’ve been squirrelnapping woodland creatures to teach them how to vacuum. Somewhere something is happening, if only I could teach this pumpkin to drive a stick. If I sleep for a hundred years, will you kiss me awake? It’s just a short climb up my […]
is not what you meant to say when you locked the door behind you; you meant to say wait— look how the irises reveal themselves in the retreating light, their petals glowing in the morning’s full flower moon. Matthew W. Schmeer’s work has appeared in Cream City Review, Natural Bridge, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and […]
He was an odd choice for mentor, afflicted with a sort of stoic sadness. Years in that stone hut, surrounded by worldly tomes, provided a backdrop of daunting reminders: earlier days of great academic promise never fully achieved. Instead, real life intervened. He had been married twice, deserted by one, losing the other to illness, […]
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