Poetry Summer 2017 fiction all issues
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Cover Marija Zaric
Kathryn Merwin
For Aaron, Disenchanted
& other poems
William Stevens
Celestial Bodies
& other poems
Kendra Poole
Take-Off, or The Philosophy of Leaving
& other poems
AJ Powell
Mama Atlas
& other poems
Matt Farrell
Waves in the dark
& other poems
Timothy Walsh
Eating a Horsemeat Sandwich at Astana Airport
& other poems
Nancy Rakoczy
Adam
& other poems
Joshua Levy
Venezuela Evening
& other poems
Ryan Lawrence
Vegan Teen Daughter vs. Worthless Dad
& other poems
George Longenecker
Yard Sale
& other poems
Susanna Kittredge
My Heart
& other poems
Morgan Gilson
Dostoevsky
& other poems
Jim Pascual Agustin
The Annihilation of Bees
& other poems
Taylor Bell
Browsing Tinder in an Aldi
& other poems
David Anderson
Continental Rift
& other poems
Charles McGregor
The Boys That Don’t Know
& other poems
Cameron Scott
Ashes to Smashes, Dust to Rust
& other poems
Kenneth Homer
Inferno Redux
& other poems
Alice Ashe
lilith
& other poems
Kimberly Sailor
Marriage's Weekly Schedule
& other poems
Kim Alfred
Soul Eclipse
& other poems
Matt Farrell
New Year’s Eve: Sitting on a lawn chair in my front yard in Dillon Beach, California
Down on the beach
shadows of families
huddle around exploding fireworks.
I am far above them.
My house is black,
made bigger by the darkness,
smaller by the wind
that slurps up the last of the white paint.
Next week, the new owners move in.
Fireworks pop and scream
as if the beach is being bombarded.
Ships materialize in the fog.
Waves grow and open their mouths.
Ice plant sucks the soil dry
and takes the hill.
Is it too much to ask that
everyone gets a turn?
The piñata,
beaten to death,
bleeds candy on the lawn.
It was once a giraffe—
neck so thin
it broke on the first swing,
the fatal blow delivered by a boy
no one wanted
to invite.
Living room
The old man had made clear plans for his death.
He was not buried in the family plot.
Nor was he cremated.
His ashes were not scattered
on the lupine-covered hill by the ocean
where he had first kissed his wife,
wind carrying the smell of driftwood and dead fish,
twisting her hair around both of their heads.
Instead, the local butcher cut the meat from his bones,
and a ninth-grade biology teacher
glued him together into a standing skeleton,
just like the plastic model the teacher displayed in his classroom.
The old man’s daughter placed his skeleton in her living room,
an elbow resting on the grand piano, as specified,
so he could still greet the neighbor’s cat when she pawed at the door
and get to know his grandchildren better.
Waves in the dark
I’m alone on the king-sized bed
of this hotel room that smells
like a hotel room.
The ceiling groans
with the weight of others,
gently cracking like the ribs
of a seasoned wooden ship
soon to be retired.
My uncle was a merchant marine in the Mediterranean.
In the worst storms
he had to tie himself to his bunk at night,
waves knocking at the porthole,
superstitions of old sailors warning
that the moans of the boards
were actually the creaking bones
of the dead
tightening the ropes.
Willamette River, past midnight
Light from a faraway houseboat
reflects off the water
like a gap between curtains.
I turn my body sideways
and slip through.
Matt Farrell
I grew up in Sacramento and currently live with my wife in Portland, Oregon. I received a BA in Film & Media Studies from Stanford and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon. I now attend medical school at Oregon Health & Science University, doing my best to write between rotations. My fiction and poetry have been published in Switchback, Arcadia, & Potomac Review.