2020 Issue
Two roads: two poems by ire’ne lara silva
Two poems by ire'ne lara silva poem for my kidneyswhat the curandera saidire’ne lara silva is the author of four poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, and FirstPoems, two chapbooks, Enduring Azucares and Hibiscus Tacos, and a short...
The Re/Sum of All Logos Under the I?’s Skin by Sherese Francis
The Re/Sum of All Logos Under the I?’s Skin By Sherese Francis Plese click here.Sherese Francis (she/they) describes themselves as an Alkymist of the I-Magination, finding expression through poetry, interdisciplinary arts, workshop facilitation, editing, and literary...
from Ophelia by V.C. McCabe
from Ophelia By V.C. McCabeV.C. McCabe is the author of Ophelia (Femme Salvé Books, 2023) and Give the Bard a Tetanus Shot (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2019). She has edited for Barren Magazine, Ice Floe Press, and Frontier Poetry. Her work appears in ekphrastic...
Hunting for More by Anyély Goméz-Dickerson
Hunting for More By Anyély Goméz-Dickerson Señorita Suspiro set out on her customary morning ride after a cup of café con leche and afew forbidden drags of her favorite Cuban cigar. For ten years, since she was twelve and was gifted abeautiful ash-white Andalusian...
Las Cucarachas by Florinda Flores-Brown
Las Cucarachas: A Story for Performance by Florinda Flores-Brown Denise was 7 and I was 8 when we met in the rain-soaked street outside my house. She was standing ankle-deep in a puddle of mud in a white frilly dress, white tights, and white patent leather shoes–all...
Breathe: two poems by Amanda Ireta
“Spell for a Full Moon in Mercury Retrograde, or: Prayer for La Llorona Who is Me” and “Dictionary (Revised)” by Amanda Ireta
Lazarus Women by Trish Hopkinson
Lazarus Women By Trish Hopkinson Lazarus Women--found remix from Margaret Fuller Ossoli’s “Appeal for an Asylum for Discharged Female Convicts” The unutterable woeand unwilling sin—the pleading eyes ofthese strange angels. Neglected and huddled,childish, and...
If Sarah Franklin Lost Five Pounds by Abby Koenig
If Sarah Franklin Lost Five Pounds by Abby KoenigIf Sarah Franklin lost five pounds, her life would be so much better. I mean, she used to weigh ten pounds less and things were wonderful, If she was recalling right. But she’d settle for five pounds now and just being...
Creature by Shannon Hardwick
Creature by Shannon HardwickShannon Elizabeth Hardwick's (she/her) work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Missouri Review, Gulf Coast, Salt Hill, Salamander, Four Way Review, Sugar House Review, The Texas Observer, Tampa Review, among others. She is a graduate of...
Playing Dead by Noreen Graf
Playing Dead By Noreen Graf The putrid odor meant something had died. Elle figured it was one of the opossums hiding out in her garage. She had intended to discourage their squatting but instead left the door ajar each night, providing them refuge. The problem was,...
Between Rocks and Hard Places by Maribel Sanchez
Between Rocks and Hard Places By Maribel Sanchez Even as I raced down the shoulder of the expressway at 120 miles per hour, I could still feel him crawling over me, inside of me. I wanted it gone, wanted to douse my skin in soaps and suds, scrub him off, scrape him...
Fingerprints on the Ultrasound Pics by Monique Quintana
Fingerprints on the Ultrasound Pics By Monique QuintanaSeptember 16 My son was born on Mexican Independence Day when I was nineteen. When he started school, he was often defiant. I took him to the foremost child psychologist in the Central Valley and told him that...
Sparrow by Gerry Rodriguez
Sparrow By Gerry RodriguezGerry Rodriguez is a poet and playwright from Mission, TX. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Her work has appeared in Stonecrop Magazine, decomp journal, Open Minds Quarterly, and others.
WATERHEATDREAMPLACE by Amber Ortega
WATERHEATDREAMPLACE By Amber OrtegaMy body can't hold anymore the life that it keepsMy ribs keep loosening and the vertebrae lets go like old screws dropping their responsibilitiesMy pelvis holds on, the only place that won't give up its grip It holds my psoas in a...
Verde / Azul by Violeta Garza
Verde / Azul by Violeta GarzaVioleta Garza (she/they/ella) is a non-binary Latinx poet, weaver, and artist from the Historic West Side of San Antonio, Texas. Their poems have been selected for The Society for the Study of Gloria Anzaldúa, Voices de la Luna, The...
Saturn sparkles: two poems by Amy Hoskins
Two poems by Amy HoskinsThe ConstantThe madness for tulips in the 1700s. Now in 2022. Nesting ten bulbs in three containers outside to wait for Springtime. Pink cashmere or so the label reads. One can only hope. Son miticas. They are mythical in a time without...
To Be Connected With You – poem by Ashley Pearson
To Be Connected With You by Ashley PearsonTo be connected by sticking your finger into my outlet Cold, cream, plastic And waiting for the electric shock, the pleasure, to shoot through your veins To press a button on my backside and to wait for it to glow blue Bright...
Stork by Ashley Pearson – fiction
Ashley Pearson’s fiction piece “Stork” glides between humor and despair in a striking narrative migration. A tongue-in-cheek look at the stork’s symbolic role in childbirth, what home can mean to each of us, and the fickle flight of destiny.
Our Story by Marci Schur – poetry
Our Story by Marci SchurThe bottle of wine between us like the semicolon and we are two independent clauses that are worthy of one another but separate red wine lying supine on a fluffed white pillow like a nude model on her river-whore break shuddering, waiting to be...
The Diary of Lea Knight by Maxima Strange- hybrid/poetry/art
A mixed-media scrapbook detailing the experience of pregnancy and the loss of a child through poetry and artwork. Maxima’s hybrid artwork explores the use of dolls as a physiological surrogate for a lost child, while her journal-like poetry lends the piece a deeply personal narrative.
Stairwells by Lina Chang – poetry
Stairwells by Lina ChangShe is the guardian of the Cliffside: a mass of colors, surrounded by elaborate systems of roots that morph into trees reaching out their arms as if stretching into the rays of a dusky morning’s air. Color spark off as violets and crimson as if...
Oxytocin by Carla Sameth – poetry
Read about past lovers, destructive passion cast shadows, churn up memory and desire in Carla Sameth’s poem Oxytocin, a stormy, sultry experimental piece.
Later-in-Life Romance by Edith Cook – creative nonfiction
A look into how complicated relationships can be as we grow older, little deaths, wisdom, and personal evolution. Cook covers fascinating topics, including hemp legislations, alcoholism, and the complexity of parent-child relationships.
Unruly Combinations: Two Poems by Isibeal Owens
Unruly Combinations: Two Poems by Isibeal OwensHeat ExchangeThe man I met at the party does not bother to place a pillow against the headboardーin fact, I think he enjoys the rhythm of my skull against the wood. His penis continues its fracking, its endless slamming,...
SCROTUM by Katharyn Machan- poetry
SCROTUM by Katharyn Machanpink as coral pink as uncensored lips meeting curve of skin and tissue to give deep pleasure ancient gods knew as thunder’s blessing Fox loves her mate full well and shapes a portrait of him now in prayers’ full worship knowing sex is what...
False Narrative: Hymen by Chelsea Fanning – poetry
False Narrative: Hymen by Chelsea FanningContrary to popular belief, the hymen does not break during vaginal intercourse. It stretches to contain the pain of every child sent to the matrimonial bed with a white sheet every teen subjected to...
A Warrior Obliges, 1996 by Lourdes Dolores Follins – creative nonfiction
Lourdes Dolores Follins writes of love and strength in “A Warrior Obliges”, a personal look into the relationship between a granddaughter and grandmother during a time when hope is easily lost.
One Woman’s Milk by Amy Meng – art/photography
The series explores Melanie Klein’s Object Relations Theory, which regards the breast, the first object on which the infant is able to project their psyche and desires, as instrumental in shaping the inner development of the infant.
Y&I Changing All The Time by Yolande Brener and Danielle Imara
To break the monotony of working from home, Brener and Imara seek the perfect time to party online. They debate sunrise, sunset, choreography, and communication at a 3000 mile distance, from London to New York.
Jesus with Seasonal Depression – flash fiction
A satirical flash fiction that explores the struggles and humanity in all of us.
My Lover’s Chest by Stacey Cameron – poetry
My Lover's Chest by Stacey CameronI lay my head upon my lover’s chest, Musing he exists wild-eyed; He’s nothing more than a pillow of unrest. He fancies me most undressed, Like stripped tulips of springtide, I lay my head upon my lover’s chest. His...
Tell Me That You Love Me by Cierra Rowe – art
Cierra G. Rowe is a self-taught artist based in rural Kentucky. This painting series presents women in relation to race, identity, growth, sexism, and inner struggles.
Look Up by Hilary Davies – experimental poetry
Look Up by Hilary Davies
Sprawling in Spring’s Trilogy – poetry
Sprawling in Spring’s Trilogyby Amy TrussellArt by Arizona Smith Stratified IslandThe blown up ship in the chest was what I was trying to reign in, putting out the galley fire and trying to bail out at the same time. Rain of lit petals in lightning cracks. It was...
For My Sister: Two Poems by Jessica Covil – poetry
Two Poems by Jessica Covil: Testimoney & For My Sister, After Her Transition
Microcosm Compositions by Jenn Fletcher – art photography
A photo series that gives a nod to breaking down archetypal gender roles, and pairs items like skulls and bones we tend to think of as masculine, with other natural items, colors, and materials we tend to think of as feminine.
KEEN CAW – experimental poetry
Keen Cawby Jacquelyn Shah * We made tangible feathers from intangible thoughts stuck beaks to our mouths using ampersand glue * I work quietly, wheeling over myself a crow over death, a crow in mourning * . . . broken-tongued . . . now I can caw,...
Obituaries of the American Dream
Obituaries of the American Dream OBITUARIES OF THE AMERICAN DREAM, July 23 @6pm Launching El Museo del Barrio's year-long initiative ESTAMOS BIEN - LA TRIENAL 20/21, the museum announces Obituaries of The American Dream, a two-part participatory project by New...
Indecent – poetry
Indecent by Oelania Rubino Sometimes I say things to piss people off Just to see them shuffle Their eyelids spread Like the diameter of space roaches inhabit when you turn on the light They become astounded when I refuse to cry And find it easier to compare me...
Old Wives’ Tales by Carol Casey – poetry
Poem “Old Wives’ Tales” by Carol Casey.
Dossier: Bond James – experimental poetry
Dossier: Bond Jamesby Michelle DislerMichelle Disler has been published in North Dakota Quarterly, The Massachusetts Review, Gulf Coast, Hotel Amerika, and The Laurel Review. These poems also make up a prequel for her first book of poetry on James Bond titled “Bond,...
Black Girl’s Song: Two poems by Shamecca Harris
Two poems by Shamecca Harris – “sponsored content” and “what good is singing?”
Entanglement by Hannah Kline – art
Entanglement by Hannah KlineAcrylic paint, chalk pastel, and collage on paper Entanglement is a codependent interaction between two entities that become engaged in an indefinite state together. Entanglement can happen between particles that spatially close or far....
We Liked to Kiss Boys – poetry
We Liked to Kiss Boys for Cindy 1954-2018 by Martha Hayes The summer after seventh grade, we spun the bottle in our friend’s living room while her mother typed all day and her snooping little sisters knew better than to tell. Some boys knew how to make us as...
Smokey Skies by Laura Mychal – art
Smokey Skies is an art series that examines our relationship to waste and excess with recycled materials and acrylic on canvas.
In the Rainbow by Adrena Zawinski – flash fiction
Hitchhike to Giverny, take a stroll through Monet’s gardens, and lose your rainbow shoes in Andrena Zawinski’s flash-fiction story.
Like Judith – poetry
Like Judith by Marci G. JafferShe mulls over the blurred recollection his eyes dark and starless his hands like the cold metal of a vault caressing scars along the small of her back, raised and forgotten (never) her spirit hovers in crisis… when ever...
Very Young – poetry
Very Young title inspired by Anne Sexton's "Young" by Marion Deutsche Cohen Foreign people were very quiet and blonde. They wore sunbonnets, fully gathered skirts, and wooden shoes. Foreign children never chanted “No more teachers’ dirty looks” nor snickered “This...
A World of Mirrors by Lois Bassen – fiction
Lois Bassen presents the story of ChiWing, his life’s journey, and the women who shaped his experiences along the way.
Harriet Cycle by Torey Akers – fiction, satire
“Harriet Cycle” a fiction satire piece by Torey Akers. Meet our new best friend Harriet, an elegant back boob who takes no shit. Find out what makes her tick.
Over the Rainbow by Laura Mahal – fiction, lgbt
Over the Rainbow studies the reality of transgender lives in America in this funny, poignant, and tragic tale.
Let it Burn: Notes on George Floyd by Shamecca Harris- hybrid experimental BLM
Let it Burn: Notes on George Floyd by Shamecca HarrisEDITOR'S NOTE: Dear Reader, After feeling emotionally destroyed from George Floyd's death (along with all the other brutal murders of black lives by our so called "law and order"), I felt like OyeDrum could...
We’re tied up in knots – poetry
Entanglementby Lois BassenFor the first time ever, physicists have managed to take a photo of a strong form of quantum entanglement called Bell entanglement—capturing visual evidence of an elusive phenomenon which a baffled Albert Einstein once called 'spooky action...
Isla x Extendidos by Karla Dipuglia- performance art/media
Isla x Extendidos is a performance art media piece that explores duality, hybrid and connection through the lenses of the Dominican-Haitian relationship.
Notes From A Seminar On Women And Science – poetry
Notes From A Seminar On Women And Science Poem by Carol Barrett Art by Arizona Smith We are redoing Genesis. Who blew the air into the jelly fish? Jesus is a feminist. You can’t find fossil examples of coy, passive women. Wyoming was electrified before...
innocenti evasioni by Victoria Genzini – art
innocenti evasioni ‘a quarantine memoir from Milano’ by Victoria Genzini – art
Maneaters by Anastasia Carrow – fiction, satire
Presenting the short, absurd, and hilarious satire piece about a “man-hating cult” with all the well known distorted assumptions about feminism in a capitalist age.
Brown Feathers by Kim Gittens – fiction
Brown Feathers by Kim Gittens is an African American historical fiction piece.
Moss by Stacey Cameron – poetry
Poem “Moss” by Stacey Cameron
Ode to the Young’uns whose Readings I attend by Nandini Bhattacharya – poetry
Read the saucy experimental poem “Ode to the Young’uns whose Readings I attend” by Nandini Bhattacharya. This dope poem drips with luscious words, unfolding a life span of memories – age by age, beat by beat.
Immortal Romance – poetry
Immortal Romance by Kristina CerroneJuniper and Holly When the house turned inside-out, the window boxes and the garden hose stayed in the same place outside the kitchen window where the juniper and holly transcribed some of our DNA into the soil, in a...
Inflight by KRISTINE ESSER SLENTZ – nonfiction
Kristine Slentz writes about navigating modern love and finding balance.