By: Alan Berger I made a promise to myself that the only voice I was going to listen to would be my own. Except, my wife’s. I like that voice of hers. Right now, she is most likely having lunch…

By: H.L Dowless Hey you,hey!,it’s been quite awhile.Hey you,hey,it’s been a long country mile.Hey you,hey,I still like your style,your midnight black hairand your glittering red smile. I glanced into our high school annualjust the other day,you were such a glowing,…

By: Priya Anand My Rambunctious Garden My rambunctious garden, a name I unabashedly borrowfrom a book in my daughter’s burgeoning libraryIs filled with a melange of plants thrown together in a frenzySpindly curry leaf rubs shoulderswith an elegant Parijat who…

By: Carl Papa Palmer Anticipation She watches the officer’s precise approach in her rear view mirror, grips the steering wheel tightly keeping both hands in plain sight at ten and two. Not the first time in this situation, she recalls…

By: Sam Barbee / trespass / lamp post beside my happy gate / its hinge-pin creaks /holly bush’s red berries / lush lawn, swept sidewalk. oak tree silhouette blackens neighbor’s yard /a bough-stamp of roots / like fingers’ dark-gnarl. leafless…

By Jim Woessner We only ever saw the Rausches in the summer. They were an elderly couple that lived in Jeff City and only came to the river on weekends. Their place wasn’t far from ours, just downriver a hundred…

By: J.K. Durick Early This early the streetlightsbegin losing their battlewith darkness are slowly replaced by the sunby morningits beauty silent, bare something whispers “fiat lux”and then thereis This early we get to seeday begin this waythe sky wins colors…

By: Lisa Creech Bledsoe The Way Poets Go On About Birds (My Secret Poem Name is Swan) True, we do go on, having had our organic yogurtwith bran on the porch as the sun rises. Jesushow could we not, after…

By: Ricky Garni F THAT MUSEUM IS EVER hit by a tornado,Alexander Hamilton’s hairwill land on Harry Houdini’sOuija Board What’s left of the world’s smallest mermaidwill settle upon Bigfoot’s foot. ### ARCHIVES this man filmed his wife as a child.and…

By Edward Wells The river comes at Penthelm, in its depression, from the southeast. Before reaching the town, the river curves to the northeast around the natural levy of the ridge. It circles the town, back toward the southeast, slowly…