In science class we learned
the hottest point of steam
is at the tip of the teapot spout—
where streams of swelling heat
rupture the cooler air.
After school, I do my homework
upstairs in my room.
My kid sister murmurs
somewhere,
playing family on her own.
When the clock clicks four
the stacks of the factory moan,
and the sky
gets smudged with smoke.
Life, the iredeemer. No wonder there’s a God, not unlike there’s hate and always a dollar in St. Anthony’s change for a cigarette from the Pakistani or Indian bodega kept up by a family who kneels just the same to different names, and praises the canonized coin in their jars writ with wishes that God won’t stop depositing dimes or spare quarters for some beatific order: smoke, family, like love. What cans to be had.
Read more "Redemption"Fridge Magnets Fridge magnets make the family. Remove one and memory fails. See them linger on the broad door. A museum of trips and pics. Each moment one reaches for wholesome milk the past does its best to please. Tim Kahl is the author of Possessing Yourself (CW Books, 2009), The Century of […]
Read more "Fridge Magnets"The Elephant with the Bright White Toenails Oregon Zoo, Portland In the dust of her summer days, trudging with the whole troop of her adopted family from feeding lot to waterhole in the expanded enclosure, swaying with measured steps as elephants do, trunk curled up, her large ear flaps sweeping the air like paper fans […]
Read more "The Elephant with the Bright White Toenails"Gracy Boes is a recent college graduate with a degree in creative writing from North Central University in Minneapolis, MN. Her work appeared twice in their literary magazine, The Wineskin. Post-grad she is staying in the Twin Cities frantically seeking a purpose that will also pay the bills. When she isn’t working or writing you can […]
Read more "Your Mother’s Love was Not a Sign from God"R.T. Castleberry’s writing has appeared in Comstock Review, Green Mountains Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, The Alembic, Pacific Review, RiverSedge and Deep Water Literary Journal, among other journals. He is a co-founder of the Flying Dutchman Writers Troupe, co-editor/publisher of the poetry magazine Curbside Review, an assistant editor for Lily Poetry Review and Ardent. His work has […]
Read more "The Fiction of Family"Michael T. Smith is an Assistant Professor of the Polytechnic Institute at Purdue, where he received his PhD in English in May 2014. He teaches cross-disciplinary courses that blend humanities with other areas. His poetry has been most recently published in Tau Poetry Journal, Eunoia Review, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Bitchin Kitsch, Taj Mahal Poetry Journal, […]
Read more "History Book: Or, The Rheology of Emotional Proximity"Irene Lee spent her childhood in the Hudson Valley and is instilled with the echo of woods and bound to the blueness of mountains even in the city. Her work aims to build strong and loving community through books, parties and education, from the most intimate form of connection as reading stories to the most […]
Read more "The Old Garden"Below is Part 16 of 18 monthly installments for Visitant. ◄◄ Read the first installment / prologue ◄ Read the previous installment, LANA LIZA No one whispered about Eliza any longer. At least not in her presence. She had grown into a fearsomely proud woman, with good reason. The Marsh blood made so famous by the […]
Read more "A Coven in Essex County | Liza"Sean Howard is the author of Local Calls (Cape Breton University Press, 2009), Incitements (Gaspereau Press, 2011), and The Photographer’s Last Picture (Gaspereau Press, 2016). His poetry has been widely published in Canada, as well as the US, UK and elsewhere, and anthologized in The Best Canadian Poetry in English (Tightrope Books, 2011 & 2014). […]
Read more "double vision (simcoe park, ontario)"
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