Issue 3

FICTION

FEAR OF WATER by Patrick Scott Vickers

I’m teaching Melissa how to fight, how to argue. This is an essential skill, and I teach her to not let herself get emotionally involved. We practice on the old arguments my wife and I had.

FOR YOU TO GO and THERE’S A FALSE GUN by Joe Hall

We found ourselves at the peninsula’s storm-tossed end/Clouds of starving priests descending on the field

EXPLANATION and SCHOOLBOYS by Josh Kalscheur

It will take a good fight to bring her back/and the chief there orders his men to call/her in with conch shells, even if it means love

BUILDING by Erin Lewenauer

My hand is on the door/In the dark/You say/It’s a movie/So you can’t go back

JELLYFISH; LAST SUNDAY, IN WINTER, A PHONY GESTURE; and WHEN YOUR HEART IS ABOUT TO STOP by Caren Scott

Before a thunderstorm,/when colors are severe, tilt your umbrella/and let the first drops hit your hair. So as not/to appear small, put on all your winter coats.

DICTATIONS by Molly Prentiss

We eat luxury sandwiches and mash up the bread with our molars. When we return to the city, the Germans are making sounds with their throats, crooning at each others nightgowns.

CLEAN by Melinda M. White

She dusted the stories of how they met and fell in love, moving them to get underneath when she needed to.