I will grant you anything you want, the Genie of the Lamp said. Three wishes…but first you must provide three letters of recommendation. The villa in Italy where they serve you bonbons hourly, while you gaze at the...
Entertainment
Lettuce All
_____ Mark Blickley grew up within walking distance of New York’s Bronx Zoo. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild and PEN American Center. His latest book is the flash fiction collection, Hunger...
Hi, This Is Your Neighbor
Attention Volunteers: Due to ____________, we have updated the Get Out the Vote script as follows. Further changes will be uploaded to this site weekly daily hourly on the minute. Please note, we have...
Doors are Killing Our Kids
Doors are Killing Our Kids, Along with Books, Tables, Chairs… (or) The Answers to School Shootings Are Right in Front of Us “There are too many entrances and too many exits to our over 8,000 campuses in Texas. There...
Food & Drinks
Four Poems by Denise Duhamel
MY MOTHER’S COVER-UP I bought one for her at Walgreens—teal blue with sparkles. She was so hunched over and short by then, it flowed almost to her ankles. I kept it here in Florida so that when she visited it was one...
Protagonist Syndrome
my girlfriend’s best friend is convinced she has covid. I’ve heard all her stories – I admit, there’s a good chance she has. but last week, when her housemate was sick with a fever, she had said it was...
from The Hyakunin Isshu: A Hundred Poems by A Hundred Poets
42. Chigiriki na Katami no sode wo Shibori tsutsu Sue-no-matsu yama Nami kosaiji to wa —Kiyowara no Motosuke We promised— Holding onto each other; While twisting each other’s sleeves, Waves would never surge over...
Lifestyle
Real Names in Real Clothing
Translated from Farsi by S. Ganjbakhsh 1 In 1850, during a religious civil conflict, a sixteen-year-old girl called Zaynab who was skilled in martial arts had to cut her hair and fight in men’s clothing. She was even...
Girl Versus Gun: What I Learned from Dating a Responsible Gun Owner
He slept with a teddy bear until he got a gun. Then he slept with his gun. That is not what Machiavelli meant when he wrote, “There can be no proper relation between one who is armed and one who is not.” We met online...
It’s Hard to Be Housed
I’m at Meth Park on a balmy day, and all the homeless meth users are spread out on blankets like it’s a picnic. Behind us, I see mothers with toddlers on the way to the playground. They cast resentful glares toward...
Latest articles
ON THE WAY TO PARADISE
Jessie O’Neal is touring again. The Tribune printed another clever Jessie story. I’m sure she called the reporter. She knows them all by now. Maybe she needed to sell more tickets. The lady knows how to create interest...
The Desert
Translated from Kurdish by Basir Borhani Hashoush’s younger sister rushed inside and spat out briskly, “Mom…! Mom, the Kurds will be moved again tomorrow.” At that moment, Hashoush and I were sitting opposite each...
The Escape
Evin Prison, 9:10 p.m. Local time. October 15, 2022 She wanted to run…but she could only take one long step to every corner of the cell and: wall…wall…wall… she pulled up her chin on the rusty sill around a small...
No Separate Joy
I like it when a thing and its opposite are both true, so it is like holding your hand up to a mirror, and regarding both your palm and the back of your hand with a single glance. I like it even more since I have...
Six Poems by Tomaž Šalamun
*Translated by Brian Henry “I saw how the planet fell” I saw how the planet fell. Hands became bumblebees. Apples sharpened my teeth in the first age of gold. Bumblebees became foil. The foil is recorded as A, as...
