fall 2017
Table of Contents
Return to Home Pagequalifications for your consideration Laura Yan
Unsolicited Relationship Advice Erin Kirsh
Persuasion Freedom of Speech Emma Winsor Wood
cold bright waves for sorrow leaf kotasek
What It Is About to Do Le Mouton Noir Dessa Bayrock
The Travel Section Ghost Train Christopher Levenson
* (It was a lake, used to bodies :islands) * (Arm over arm you expect) Simon Perchik
Somebody Else's Heroes Small Change Jocko Benoit
Ode to a Desiccated Olive (Love is easier the headless way) James Cagney
Familiar Pianissimo Jennifer van Alstyne
Pamplemousse Dominique Bernier-Cormier
Rebelling Unrest Errata Dani Spinosa
Ecstasy Like Water to Soften Leather Jasmine Sky
The Malice in My Footsteps Conyer Clayton
Stereotypes like like i love you Andrew Warner
Limits New York Brian Jerrold Koester
Persuasion
I’d like to be a minimalist, but I’m not
is another prophecy I fulfill
by creating it. When my husband and I first met
(I’m one of those who mentions her lovers too much
is another), we debated the existence of the self: I believed, he
disagreed. So I related to him what my parents had related to me whenever reminded of my lust for accuracy:
When Emma was a child, we worried she’d never speak.
Then, one day, age 3, reading a book with the babysitter—
Look at this little bear’s feet, the sitter said, pointing to the picture.
Those aren’t feet, Emma snapped. Those are paws.
See? (I said to C.) That’s me.
Ancient Greeks occasionally used the base of a ruined column as an anchor when they had nothing else
to moor the boat, he replied, unfazed.
I: Yes, precisely—the base of a column.
And he: A ruined column.
[...] 1
1 The silence on this subject lasted a few weeks but ended before the wedding, one clean February day, when I turned to him and said: Maybe there is no self, but also maybe, for me, there is.