Issue 9

Issue 9.4 – Nonfiction

Excerpt from Smoke the Clouds & Drink the Moon My mother, at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, befriending a homeless band of liquored-up musicians on a summer day both haunts and delights me. It is 1995: Tom Hanks coins the phrase from Apollo 13: Houston, we have a problem. The Soup Nazi from Seinfeld makes his…

Issue 9.4 – Fiction

Matthew Kowalski stood over the kitchen sink and ate bacon. He let the crumbs fall into the porcelain basin and turned on the faucet to wash them away. His wife, Karen, usually made a big breakfast Sunday mornings for him and their boy, Ruby, but three weeks ago they’d helped him move into his dorm…

Issue 9.4 – Poetry

I was sixteen, working late at Hested’s department store pressing clothes on their hangers with hot mist from an ancient machine. You had to be careful not to burn yourself. The boss asked if I wanted to get a bite to eat, and then he’d drive me home. He was our neighbor, my mom…

Issue 9.3 – Nonfiction

The old city had been tough place to live in. There was no electricity. No roads. No drainage system. There was no food except for what the poor fishermen could get from the salty seas and the eventual canned delicacy from distant lands: peas, apricots, corn grains. There was no sweet water, it all had…

Issue 9.3 – Fiction

Ignacio was a repeat customer. Although this fact was no good at all for him, Karina didn’t mind writing his name in her planner, as she rather liked him from the beginning. He was handsome, but not unapproachably so. Tall and thin, with dark skin that promised to turn leathery in two or three more…

Issue 9.3 – Poetry

Lasted 45 seconds before I shut the video off. It was her scream rattling my ears, the sight of Denise Collins’ right arm in the police K-9’s jaw. Tried to watch it a second time, sound muted. Clicked pause after five seconds of her mouth, her eyes opened wide, twisted in terror. Took…

Issue 9.2 – Nonfiction

I can’t quite bring myself to pull back from the steam that kisses my neck and face aggressively every time I lift my hand. It’s getting more and more suffocating the longer the iron has a chance to heat up, but it’s slow going this afternoon. Something about the faded green party dress hissing in…

Issue 9.2 – Fiction

Please don’t laugh. I understand that, on the long list of things which most people would notice following them home, an ice-cream truck would be high on that list. If nothing else, you would think the relentless metallic jingle playing on an endless loop would alert someone to the fact that they’re being tailed. …

Issue 9.2 – Poetry

How is it that you appeared in the enameled tin cup that you gave my husband because he said he liked it? This morning, he made coffee in our usual way, handed the cup to me, asked me what it tasted like. The coffee at my parents’ house. The house that has now been…

Issue 9.1 – Nonfiction

I scribble the directions on a sheet of lined paper. Most of the turns I know, since I regularly drive the first two-thirds of the way to the store. Nevertheless, I’m nervous. If I’m driving some place new, I usually take my husband Richard along. He’s gone today, so I’m making the drive alone. Down…