CONTENTS

Poetry

STACY MARIE MILLER The tumor in my uncle’s brain sings a lullaby in the key of Kathy Bates in Misery

DESTILY O. BIRDSONG Booby Trap; Permissions

ZACHARY LUNDGREN The Skyline Is Two Gazes Long

KATIE KEMPLE Million Dollar Poem; Cigerette love poem

ADRIANA BELTRANO Plaster Crucifix Sonnet; The Substance

ARTHUR MCMASTER Two People Sharing a Small Umbrella

ISMAIL YUSUF OLUMOH a poem that cajoles my mother into a smoke as an invaded country

KELLY R. SAMUELS Turning Toward a Large Body of Water as Implicit Memory

DANIEL BRENNAN The Memory Game; Insomnia Season

JENNIFER VEECH Terminal Ballistics

ALEXANDER LAZARUS WOLFF Anorexia Nervosa; The Second Noble Truth

BETH DULIN All the Lightning You Carry

DUSTIN BROOKSHIRE & BETH GYLYS Body’s Wish Villanelle

MARY ROBBINS Her Spirit Lingered in JCPenney

ALEX MOERSEN To be an old dog who loves figs

LAUREN SWIFT continuation

CHRISTOPHER ANKNEY The Good Guys

WILLIAM L. RAMSEY Late Night Ramble 1984

JILL MICHELLE My Therapist Tells Me; The Truth is Made Of

DANIEL LASSELL The Virgin Spanking the Christ Child

EMMA BOLDEN Clickbait

MEGHAN MIRAGLIA All My Love; Reproduction

JOSH MAHLER Elegy for a Friendship

MICHAEL JULIANI On the Need for Validation

Fiction

E.R. RAMZIPOOR Unidentified

BILLY O’CALLAGHAN The Beating

CHRISTOPHER CHILTON First in Flight

MARCIE ALEXANDER Christmas Eve

JESSICA LEE RICHARDSON Glossarium

HARRIS QUINN The Habit of Losing

SHANIA SIU Gaakzaipou

K.C. VANCE Now That Will is Gone

KINDALL FREDRICKS Black Hare

KATIE WARD Cruelty Free

PETER KESSLER Beach Day

Creative Nonfiction

MILISSA REDDISH The Zeitgeist of a Sentence

CASEY GRAY Nine-Pound Hammer

Book Reviews

SARAH BLACKMAN Witness to Their Passage: Shobha Rao’s Indian Country

HARRIS QUINN What a Brother Knows: A Review of Dean Marshall Tuck’s Twinless Twin

JOSEPH BATES The Family Found: A Review of Kevin Wilson’s Run for the Hills

CONTENTS

Poetry

FARAH ABOUZEID the dream hills; you cannot deny the authority of the mountains

TARA BRAY American Dream; Winter Walk/Summer Walk

JOSHUA MARTIN Ode to the Salmon That Didn’t Make It

JAMES ENGLEHARDT Goldilocks Will Not Forget

NATE MARSHALL in her last days my grandma worried about me; whichever singer or songwriter or old uncle who first came up with the phrase go half on a baby is terrible at math

SIMON ANTON NIÑO DIEGO BAENA Ghost

DAVID STARKEY Her Hand

RACHEL HERSHON The Porn Actor’s Wife

AMANDA ROTH Office of Childhood

RAENA SHIRALI Turning Thirty on a Little Patch of Concrete, Not Alone

EMILY ROSKO I Can Be Nice

BELA KOSCHALK Would S&M Satisfy Octopus Under Duress/My Own Lachesisms

GRACE GUY Eulogy for the Living

JESSICA NIRVANA RAM Holy Ghazal

CHIAGOZIEM JIDEOFOR this poem

FRANCES KLIEM Funeral Procession Up Deer Mountain

JOSHUA KULSETH My Father, the Wrestler

JULIÁN DAVID BAÑUELOS La Casa en la Noche

MICKIE KENNEDY No Leaks

DOMINIQUE AHKONG When I Met You; A Man Who Looks Like Your Best Friend’s Father

ELIZABETH CRANFORD GARCIA Anti-elegy on the way to work

CD ESKILSON Distant Relations

BRIAN CZYZYK Lafayette, Indiana

CHARLES KELL Rhode Island

KAILEY TEDESCO domestic horror/dog walk

CELIA LAWREN Mesopic Vision

VICTORIA JEAN REYNOLDS Nape

JOSH LUCKENBACH Finally After So Much

Fiction

CYN NOONEY Sterling Recruit

COLBY VARGAS Something Like a Year

G.D. HOLLOWAY Spook Hill

ANNA RIMOCH Little Bird

KASEY PETERS Creep

REBECCA BERNARD An Overwhelming Loneliness

ELIZABETH FARREN Tattletale

PATRICK J. ZHOU Nice-Ville Station

KATHLEEN DONAHOO Storm Season

VICTORIA MORSELL HEMINGSON Lava

Creative Non-Fiction

HARRIS WALKER The Matanza

Book Reviews

STEPHEN HUNDLEY We See You: A Review of Dustin M. Hoffman’s Such a Good Man: Stories

CARSON COLENBAUGH Far From Silent, Far From Buried: Ben Kline’s It Was Never Supposed To Be

MICIAH PENDARVIS helen of troy gets a five-star review: Maria Zoccola’s Helen of Troy 1993

CONTENTS

Poetry

ALIYAH COTTON Dark Matter

ERIKA ECKART Reaper; Into the Woods; On contingency plans when one cannot release one’s young into the wild

SHARON KENNEDY-NOLLE Bad Still Life With Bob Ross; Kopack and KFC

CARSON ELLIOT Murfreesboro: Redux

STELLA WONG sonnet for pan jinlian

G.C. WALDREP Wilderness of Causes

ENEIDA ALCALDE Daughter’s Grief; Ring of Fire

PROSPER C. ÌFÉÁNYÍ The Last Image of Mercy

GRACE EZRA More Than Ever

ROSS WHITE Ode to the Fabulously Wealthy

ALLISON FIELD BELL You Burn Me

SARA BURGE Luck

JO BEAR Family Cross-Section: Mother; Unwilded

WAYNE CHAPMAN The Butterfly Garden

DANIELLE SHORR Ode to the Walmart Claw Machines

STEFANIE KIRBY Coronary; Traffic

BERNADETTE GEYER Explaing Cremation to Our Daughter at the Dinner Table

JOSEPH BYRD Haunting

LANA SPENDL Through the Window

COLLIN KELLEY Ev’ry time we say goodbye

ALEX LEE Lament for the Doe

EBEB E.B. BEIN Mother’s Day

SAM SZANTO The Spider and the Fly

STEVE DENEHAN Dressed to Go Out

KAISA ULLSVIK MILLER Last Summer

Fiction

ERIK HARPER KLASS The Phenomenology of Leaving

PRACHI KAMBLE The Divers

MAURICE IRVIN Ryan Number Three

BENJAMIN MYERS Wakefield

CYNTHIA NOONEY Sterling Recruit

RYAN LIVINGSTON Mr. Gorski’s Science Club

MATT CASHION Reunions, Atrocious Manners, the Atlanta Airport

MANDIRA PATTNAIK All My Old and New Selves

SUZANNE MANIZZA ROSZAK First Night at Fern’s Spectacular Twenty-Four-Hour Diner

A.M. YANG Something Special

Creative Nonfiction

ANNA B. MOORE You Will Never Be Happy Again, 1986

MARY GRIMM Coming Back from the Dark

 

Contents

Poetry

NATALIE GIARRATANO Farmer’s Almanac: Wildfire Outlook

LAURA VOGT Folklore of Past Lives

MARÍA ESQUINCA Dream In Which I Return Home; Dream in Which My Father Ask For Forgiveness; My Mother Crawls Out of The Ocean

DANIEL OOI My Christian Grandfather’s Taoist Funeral 

ELLEN JUNE WRIGHT The Secret Life of Wisteria; I Carry Wisteria In My Chest

JENNIFER GIVHAN Order of Operations ((or the Viral Equation that “Broke” the Internet) or Mothering Through Chronic/Mental Illness); My Daughter & My Daughter & I Test Positive for Covid

JAVIER SANDOVAL The Last Dozen Drizzled-City Nights

CHARLES BYRNE Everything happens for a reason

ZACHARIAH CLAYPOLE WHITE Medical History as Creation Myth

SHAUN TURNER The Bull Moose Bluff Charges

KENIA CANO Stone;Fiesta

MEGAN J. ARLETT Alhambra Incantation; August Afternoon in the Olive Orchards

JOHN T. HOWARD Our Father

JULIE FUNDERBURK Shoes

MEGHAN STERLING Love Poem for My Husband at 4 AM

JOSH LEFKOWITZ Forty-One Years

EMILY LAKE HANSEN Baby Got Back But It Won’t Fit In The Seat

ROBBIE Q. TELFER Pachyderm

AMORAK HUEY Everything I Know About Love I Learned from Indiana Jones

SARAH BROCKHAUS To the Cockroach

ANGIE MACRI Findings

JEFF NEWBERRY Word Problem

DOUG RAMSPECK River Birch

Fiction

BRADLEY BAZZLE Each Unique Specimen 

LESLIE PIETRZYK Girls Like That End Up Fine

MATT LUMBARD Big River, little river

M.O. WALSH The Staggered

WILLIAM WALKER Chemin de Dieu

ROBERTO ABAD If You Think About It, It’s Not So Bad SCR Series in Latin American Translation 

BHAVIKA SICKA Mooring

VASILIOS MOSCHOURIS The Impact

CLAYTON BRADSHAW-MITTAL Carolina Demon Story

DENNIS MCFADDEN Territorial Imperatives

S.J. LAURO Snake Luck 

Book Reviews

SCOTT GOULD One Foot Here, One Foot There: Khem K. Aryal’s The In-Betweeners 

JON SEALY Implacably Real: Ron Rash’s The Caretaker 

Our spring issue includes fiction and poetry by authors Daniel Wallace, George Singleton, Evelyn Berry, Anne Marie Rooney, and many more.

This issue also announces the winners of the fourth annual Ronald Moran Prize in Fiction and Poetry:

Poetry: Evelyn Olmos, “House of Mirrors” (SCR 55.1)

Fiction: Banzelman Guret, “A Plan’s a Plan” (SCR 55.1)

Contents

Poetry

1 MARIA ZOCCOLA the wrongness lies, she said,; ten percent

14 EVELYN BERRY the trans archive self-immolates

16 LUCIAN MATTISON Evacuation Orders

31 JENNA GOLDSMITH Let’s Contribute to a Community Free of Sexual Misconduct

34 CASSANDRA WHITAKER A Wolf Named Kyle

43 KENTON K. YEE Pompeii Casts

44 DANIELLE KOTRLA Tour of Grief; Elm Street

61 RONDA PISZK BROATCH Tonight, You Play Your Country Western Records Backwards

62 DAN ALBERGOTTI Here, Where Men Sit

79 PATRICK KINDIG Tropical Depression

80 ULYSES RAZO Poem Convincing You to Leave Your Husband

91 CARSON COLENBAUGH Passing the Dove Fields, I Think of Those Who Came Before; Economies of Scale

99 ROMANA IORGA what short wicks / we fuel with our blood

114 JENNY MOLBERG Initiation in White; Jenny | Jennifer: Aries Season

129 JEFF WILLIAM ACOSTA Fireflies

132 CANDICE KELSEY Ave, Verum Corpus

134 ANNE MARIE ROONEY That last year in Pittsburgh; Braid

141 ROXANNE HALPINE WARD The Medical Editor on Photo Albums; The Medical Editor Lies Down

Fiction

3 DANIEL WALLACE The Stork

18 YOUN ROURKE The World a Stage

33 ADAM MCOMBER Signs of a House Haunting

35 JEFF EWING Our Erosion

48 M.E. KOPP Timber

64 EMILY BLACK Sparrow Trapped in Crashing Plane

81 GEORGE SINGLETON Wild Me

94 REBECCA ORCHARD Small Hours

101 TADEO PALACIOS VALVERDE Not Long Until Dawn

118 BILL GAYTHWAITE Certain Healing Properties

136 MICHAEL DON Something to Hold

143 T. S. MCADAMS Forsaking Paul Bunyan

Book Reviews

146 CLARE MULLANEY Disability and Wonder in Emily Rose Cole’s Thunderhead

149 MIRIAM MCEWEN Love Is a Horror: How Adam McOmber’s Fantasy Kit Centers Queer Emotion

151 SADIE HOAGLAND A Midwest with Layers: Jenny Robertson’s Hoist House

154 ADAM MILLION Buy a Membership: Wandering through Rubble Square by Adam Tavel

157 BRIAN MCGRATH Worldlessness and Love: Walt Hunter’s Some Flowers

161 SARAH BLACKMAN When Skies Are Also Walls: Oindrila Mukherjee’s The Dream Builders

Contributors

164