War Story # 43: Search for Kidnap Victims, Radwaniyah, Iraq

by Paul David Adkins

Originally published on February 1, 2012

The Soldiers found rocks and a sleeping man chained to engine blocks.   He’ll run off, the uncle sighed. What would you suggest?   He used to swear, piss in the house, growl at the guests.   He’s slipped off ropes, smashed bedrooms where he slept. We built a hut, collared his neck . . [...]

Run Through the Jungle

by Ben Smith

Originally published on February 1, 2012

My father bought hundred dollar gym shoes sometimes two or three pairs at once. When dirty, he threw them in the washer then baked them in the dryer they bubbled, hardened, and cracked. He might throw one of his new shoes to the teething Labrador or wedge his feet into them and go for a [...]

Esau

by Jonathan Dick

Originally published on February 1, 2012

My older brother – Well. There’s not much to say save The saying that says it enough To be said that he walked Hopping his madness   Like a one-armed scissor Cutting the dull from the ground Planting it in our faces To be grown like the listeners We’d been in his footsteps When the [...]

Goodhue’s Folly

by I. Roy-Faderman

Originally published on February 1, 2012

Everyone knows about that capitol shaft in Lincoln, Nebraska, with its climax of gold dome, atop of which is a statue of a shirtless farmer-man hand-sowing grain the old way – grain, which the brochure will tell you is corn.   Now my family may not have been here taming the prairie, but I tell [...]

Exodus

by Deirdre Maultsaid

Originally published on January 1, 2012

It is not all ripe oranges delicious mangoes hammocks Poinciana trees zephyrs sun although there is sun and it is merciless.   My sister has no time; fresh water is miles away.   The Maccabee version belonged to the black man. “Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right.” Those [...]

vision of the scribes

by Gerard Beirne

Originally published on January 1, 2012

Vision of the Scribes at Work on a Vision of Hell Scribe A working his pen at a slant (to judge from the endings of his descenders) His script showing a strong sense of the perpendicular (in spite of a slight tendency for his vertical strokes to slope to the right). More calligraphic than accurate. [...]

Fruition

by Ben Smith

Originally published on January 1, 2012

In sixth grade puberty started growing all around me. The locker room revealed you had a little hair or none at all except for the guys with full beards and hair on their chests.   The hairiest masturbated first and most often. Some confessed, “I used to do it, but I stopped. I don’t do [...]

Since I Left Home

by Victoria Thompson

Originally published on December 1, 2011

I realized that I am missing many things—a shoehorn, a cash box, a serrated knife. But these things are not really missing because I see no use for them. After the lawn was mowed for the last time and before I gave away the keys, I hooked down a diet coke and took out the [...]

Slip

by Ariana Lenarsky

Originally published on December 1, 2011

There was no water for the river, the dam had been reopened intentionally. Still, moisture came quickly, like a new age, as the bridge murmured its weight and bare birds ringed the shadow of a cloud.   Summertime, relentless, its pickling daysweat pooling fear at the armpit, red oak rashes poisoning the ankle and back, [...]

Configurations at 4 and 40

by Bridget Gage-Dixon

Originally published on December 1, 2011

With thick sticks of chalk pressed between her fingers she draws circles on the driveway, some loop around each other, others float aloof beside the bordering lawn.   She hasn’t mastered square or triangle but the unrelenting way a thing spins back into itself makes perfect sense to her.   Cross-legged on the blacktop beside [...]