Writing is an act of resistance
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Brown, Orange, and Beige Like Caramel
By Alexander Schuhr “Maybe you want to play with him,” the woman says, leading the little girl toward a toddler sitting in the sand. The boy doesn’t need anybody to play with. He is completely absorbed with his task of shoveling sand into a bucket. Nevertheless, this woman seems terribly eager to see her…
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Our Love Exists in Shadows
By David Hanlon They are like the sun— all-seeing, blazing down on us from unreachable heights. We can’t look directly at them, for, as tempers flare, they will incinerate our eyes, cast scalding hot rays and finish off our faces. And where can we go? Only the shadows can offer us a home, where we…
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Fireweed
By Karen Shepherd The fireweed flowers push back, clusters pink: defiant color breaking through the grim scorched landscape. Spikes of petals linked to capsules bearing silky seeds that swim through summer smoke, volcanic flow, the bomb’s destruction. Wispy parachutes released by wind, the fluffy strands transport with calm the cells’ reminder that there might be…
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Two Poems by Leslie McGrath
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Dragoness
By Kayla Bashe russet, maroon, and burgundy, darker even than flame like roses; not the cloying petals, but the green heart of their living, sharp and fresh (call her a dream without a name) lindworm, sigil hoard narrowing into ultraviolet above abrasive glowing scales, daring the world to answer for its sins polished like…
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Heaven Can’t Wait
By Dean Liscum Less than 48 hours after the mass murder of 26 people in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, investigators are pursuing a theory that the attack was planned by the congregation itself. They were tipped off by Fox News host, Ainsley Earhardt. During an interview with Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Earhardt suggested that…
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Plato says–
By Elisabeth Horan Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety &^%$$%*! Ahem, the affairs of women, now let’s examine that Breakups Acne Skinny Not skinny Fat as hell Beauty Contests Potlucks Hurricane Sandys Our Babies Sandy Hooks Our Chilluns Fergusons Nuestros Hijos/as Border walls Familias separadas Harvey/Irma/Jose/Maria Trumps/Putins/Pences/Fences Congress/Senate/Selfish/Impasse Health insurance/Obamacare/Medicaid/Medicare…
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In the Dark
By Sarah Sutro how to survive a long disconnect, a winter of nationalist intent, a reduction of feeling? this morning the green slate on the window sill glows blue, under pots of flowers and bulbs raw edges like edges in a gorge upstate, shale-layered rivers, like pressed layers of filo dough in fine pastry snow…
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Proofreader
By Kris Faatz On the day the world finally changed, Cinny had her feet up on the end of the bunk in her prison cell and her nose in a lame women’s magazine. Today marked her seventeenth day at Washington D.C.’s Correctional Facility for Troubled Women. Seventeen days out of the three thousand, six…