July, 2022

You Don’t Know Jacques by Kelley Stroup

Lounging on a park bench, idly toeing gravel, he picks a speck of dried blood from beneath a ragged nail. He’d like to introduce himself. 

Kelley Stroup is a semi-reformed nail polish hoarder and occasional writer who indulges in lightheartedness every fifth Sunday in odd-numbered years. 

Two pieces by Holly Ariel Kavanagh

Sequins on the rocks

I grieve the glitter on the skerry. Hot pink hotpants glint like a mermaid’s tail beneath the sea foam. God, you were such a catch. 

Imported bubbly

The young lady observed Earth from a window seat. She raised a glass for more champagne, her mouth a perfect ‘o’ like the floating bubbles.

Holly Ariel Kavanagh is an art history graduate currently living in London. She loves crazy make-up, 80s new wave, and all things horror. Her short attention span means her stories are rarely finished.

You Up? by Victor Fisher

I’m violently awoken in ice cold sweat, alone in my house.

Listening to tiptoe footsteps, too terrified to confront a burglar…

and her crinkle mouse
Victor Fisher is an aspiring speculative fiction writer and physics student. He lives in Manitoba, Canada with two obnoxiously loud cats. 

Two pieces by Dan Sicoli

to the finish lime

after mixing that classic
hemingway daiquiri
with such panache

shaking rocks
topping her perfection
with a wafer-thin
lime float

i drank every word
she wrote

all your dreams in vending machines

offering one the control
of dreams
for fulfillment
like
selecting snacks
from a dispenser

would we ever again
bother to step
from our night sheets

Dan Sicoli’s poems have appeared in numerous litmags and anthologies including Angel Rust, Beatnik Cowboy, Blue Collar Review, Book of Matches, Loud Coffee Press, Sleet, San Pedro River Review, and Sheila-Na-Gig. Some weekends you might find him in a local gin mill banging an old Gibson with a garage rock band in and around Niagara Falls, NY. <www.pw.org/directory/writers/dan_sicoli>

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