Gordan Struić

    In Transit The carriage hums — rows of bowed heads, fingers scrolling, eyes tethered to small glowing screens. Outside, the city slides by, blurred lines of glass and rain. I watch my own reflection — half-face, half-shadow, and behind me, someone lifts...

Stephen Keeler

    Broken biscuits for H and PB The days were huge and kind and sometimes after school we’d buy a bag of broken biscuits for the long walk home across the heavy heat of afternoon on lucky days she wouldn’t take the pennies offered up in supplication for the...

Joseph Blythe

    Wallpaper I swear I felt the swirly patterned paper rip from the walls of my childhood bedroom. It was the same stained cream shade as my skin – pockmarked, cut and scabbed, dry and peeling – and I felt it tearing, dragging pieces of my grey flesh with...

Denise Bundred

    Starry Night Over the Rhône Vincent van Gogh. Oil on canvas, Arles 1888. A quay on the riverbank. Lovers dissolve in a sheen of violet and mauve — enveloped by a forget-me-not cold glow. The man’s harsh words are crests and troughs of Prussian blue...

Rahma O. Jimoh

    The Birds A bird skirts across the fence & I rush to the window to behold its flapping wings— It’s been ages since I last saw a bird. My only link to nature here is my landlady’s dog, locked in its cage, barking furiously at all but no one. I see the...

Samuel A. Adeyemi

    Without Blood I used to think that suffering, although injurious, makes a good story. You know how it goes. The more tortured the artist, the closer the body is to brilliance. I still do not know if this is a myth. But mostly, I do not care now. I still...