In Conversation

Silence it’s the usual scene i’m at my desk the TV is on i’m not watching it we’ve been together about three months it’s our nightly phone call i’m half drunk and mentioning that someone has been calling all week and hanging up without leaving a message i tell her it could be my estranged …

If you squint hard enough These four poems could look like love songs By pella {f}elton On writing a love poem in Ohio during a genocide Hey, did I come off as rude last night at writing group when you were talking about potential Democratic pickups after the shootings in Minneapolis? Sorry ‘bout that. I …

Early Morning Smoke Alarm Sunday morning, my wife wakes up and stares at the bedroom ceiling for twenty minutes. This sort of behavior never bodes well for me. Twenty minutes of deep thought is usually followed by the sort of pronouncements that can ruin a man’s day. Examples range from “you spend entirely too much …

Satan’s Choice Drug Run We are driving through Blind River, on our way back from camp. Past the dragon boat races and that half-demented dentist who should have stopped pulling teeth over a decade ago. And looking to the nearest corner of the Tim Hortons parking lot, my wife and I both see them right …

The Second of December Who calls a wife from the hospital at 3 am to tell her she’s a widow? My call comes five minutes later as I prepare for an early shift at work. My mother tells me she’s a widow. The December morning sky holds no stars as I drive to her house, …

PUNK ROCK FAMILY I remember those daze well, those daze as a young man So full of passion and a desire to live this life as if that day could Be my last day on earth & a fair few came a hell of a lot Closer than even I’d like to admit. There were …

we could’ve had the world instead we’ve got cell phones our heads buried up our asses as a fat fascist sits in the white house perfecting the art of grift while on the groggy morning subway train the tinny tick tock of last year’s big summer hit plays on repeat. John Grochalski is the author of …

Tell Them Goodbye by E. R. Sanchez (Fried Potato Press) Tell Them Goodbye is a brutal, tender, and deeply human coming-of-age novel that refuses to romanticize migration while still honoring the hope that makes it inevitable. Through the voice of Sino, a Mexican teenage boy fleeing violence, poverty, and inherited silence, E. R. Sanchez delivers …

Don’t Forget We’re just creatures entertaining each other Fooling each other Fucking each other & sometimes if we’re lucky Loving each other Jonathan Hayes lives in Oakland, California with his wife and their cat.

In the Summer of Short Pants and Flannel So, here’s a story. This one goes way back, thirty plus years, back in the summer of short pants and flannel when I was beginning to dig what the boys from Seattle were laying down but couldn’t quite turn loose of Skid Row, Queensryche and Saigon Kick. …