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THE LATEST | AUTUMN 2008

ALLEGORY
KIKI PETROSINO

LITTLE BIRD
EDWARD MC WHINNEY

ASTRONAUT
GREGORY LAWLESS

STRIKE ANYWHERE MATCHES
KEVIN HEATH

THE GAME
B.E. HOPKINS

CLAY FIGURES
GRACE WELLS

YANG
S.L. WISENBERG

LENNON 2.0
ALLISON SHOEMAKER

BENEATH THE HAMMOCK
MEG FRANKLIN

HARD LOOKS
LAURENCE DAVIES



FROM THE EDITOR


REVIEWS
JOHN DUFRESNE
TONY HORWITZ
CIARAN BERRY
STEVE WEINBERG
HARUKI MURAKAMI
JACK PENDARVIS
JOSEPH O'NEILL
MARISA SILVER
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THE GREATEST | 2003-2008

HOW YOU REMEMBER HER
AMY REED
San Antonio did not let you touch it. It was dry and sharp and hot. It was cheap furniture covered in plastic. Portland, Oregon was not Texas. That, you were sure of. The damp air held you in place, made you sticky. It wanted you to stay, made you so heavy with wet that you had no choice.
    She came from Maine, the most exotic place on earth.... (2007)

STEPHEN MURULI DIES...
AMANDA LEIGH LICHTENSTEIN
take one:
stephen muruli dies in campus fire
take two:
stephen muruli's body is set on fire
take three:
there is no such man as stephen muruli...(2004)

HOUSEHOLD POISONS
THOMAS KING
After finishing all three schools on our schedule, Dr. No-No and I go for a drink where someone he knows tends the bar. They let me in even though I’m still wearing the lower half of my chicken suit and I have to stand behind the stools because my tail feathers don’t allow me to sit. Dr. No-No feeds me drink after drink, but I know where this is headed and eventually I tell him to stop.... (2007)

THE FUNERAL DIRECTOR’S WIFE
GRACE WELLS
 Often I have watched his hands about a corpse,
the closing of the mouth like the closing of a tin can gaping and wide.... (2006)

ADVICE: GET THE FAREWELL RIGHT
EDWARD MC WHINNEY
Last Wednesday when I saw you for the last time, and how radiant you were, what a mess I made of the farewell. Unfortunately, I met you in an awkward location, right there alongside the fax machine that never stops, and by a serious twist of fate, I was momentarily struck dumb as it were, well no, not dumb, dumb would have been better, instead I said all the wrong things, how maddening. I’m bleeding. My brain is hanging out of my sock. There’s a cat chewing it like it’s a fish head that’s fallen out of a bin down a ratty alleyway.... (2005)

TODAY, OCTOBER THE NINTH...
ALLISON SHOEMAKER
This morning they shook the ground in North
      Korea
by splitting atoms. Last night
                                                  an eyelash lay
on your cheek, orphaned. Two worlds are
     intimate:
The Nation of Things That Fall Apart, and The Republic of Places 
We Can’t See.... (2007)

PARALLEL CONSERVATORY
CLARE KIRWAN
He reached for his shirt to cover the woman – though she looked the hard-faced type, not too fussy where her Shiraz came from – and got up, quite slowly considering, reaching for his underpants and trousers in a leisurely fashion. And all the time I just stood there, as though I had been carved into the doorpost, a ‘period feature’ estate agents might call me, a little worn but genuine post-war.... (2007)
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SNAPSHOTS OF THE EPIC

GREGORY LAWLESS

Here the hero tries his eyes

after his winter’s sleep.

Here apple blossoms

pelt the moat

between passing mallards. Here

the hero recites his dreams

into the sink. He knows his fate

by rote.... (2007)


PLUM ISLAND

ANDREW COBURN

They come to fish, semiprofessionally, with no enthusiasm, as if they knew in advance they would catch old fish, sluggish stripers. He comes for other reasons, which I figure out for myself. He comes to brood over the beauty of the place, to study the ancient history of the scroll-like sea, to stand in the pea-green dusk and ponder waves that wear out before reaching shore.... (2006)


LAST LIGHT

KARYNA McGLYNN

Virginia's pulse wings up

through the patio's citronella flame,

some exotic insect: shiny, maroon,

and up from the steam of the river.... (2005)


CONFESSION

PATRICK LOAFMAN

The neighbor’s boy is a cartoon. The doctors said he wouldn’t live past two, but he turns twelve today. He coughs up old newsprint from the twenties, leaves dusty ink footprints from the bedroom to the fridge and back.... (2007)


AFTER SILENCE COMES THE DIRGE

LAURENCE DAVIES

She runs on sand, or dew, or grass, or snow without a trace, and yet she stands broad-shouldered, six feet tall and sees in the dark with incandescent eyes. Sometimes her lips pull back to show her teeth, sharp and bright as well-honed dirks. As she sweeps across the island, her locks fan out behind her, pine boughs blazing in a gale. No gossamer for her; she wears the Bodach plaid. Indeed she is the Bodach Bansidh, doomed to lamentation till the seas go dry.... (2008)


SINGLE LIFE #8

AMY GROSHEK

Out some window then

slipped my hope: dirty captive bird

taking back the perfect sky.... (2008)


PIGEONS

TED FRISBIE

intruders - moving slowly, haltingly in ragged clothes, wilting flowers, pilgrims

to the sinking Iglesia de Guadalupe, kilometer of blood from penitent knees,

short as children, they are easy — lots of time to gather scraps and get out of the way.... (2003)

CONTRARY CARTOONIST

RUSSELL HODIN

In word and image Hodin captured the hypocrisy of George Bush’s campaign for war. (2003)  More Hodin...>Hodin.htmlshapeimage_7_link_0
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