In an effort to eradicate the disease carrying pigeon population from the city, the mayor signed into law an ordinance requiring all pigeons within the city limits to wear pants. His hope was that they would be forced to flee the city as they did not possess the dexterity necessary to fashion their own clothing. He underestimated the pigeons’ solidarity and the ordinance instead sparked an uproar in the garmentless pigeon community. The pigeons quit their jobs as letter carriers in protest and decided to focus their efforts solely on their cynical hobby of defecating on large man-made objects.

From Guest Contributor, Sean Franklin

Unicorns are not a figment of my imagination. They are as real as I am and I know where to find them.

I should’ve been ecstatic but I couldn’t stop thinking about how much more I wanted to ride a Pegasus over a Unicorn.

From Guest Contributor, Kristen Lum

You are the hair against my belly, left too long in slick cooling foam. You are the pull of my arm as it leans closer to ground than shoulder. You are the gelatin near my breast where I am found waiting, one more time. You are sorted beyond shape, into one scent I’ll accept, one I push heavily against, a reminder of reverse birthing, of what inside might mean if wrapped, warped by artifice and vivid yellows. You are this sweetness I take instead of a lesson—a cabbage of greens kept to hide the reds left in your leaving.

From Guest Contributor, Kelli Allen

Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge and holds an MFA from the University of Missouri. She is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Allen gives readings and teaches workshops throughout the US. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, from John Gosslee Books (2012) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Time is my mortal enemy.

In an effort to boycott time, I never wear a watch.

From Guest Contributor, Kristen Lum

“Once you can get by the smell, you have it licked.”

This sign was posted on the blue-veined cheeses in Uncle Kenny’s delicatessen. Other signs adorned some of the exotic cheeses and meats in the shop. “Check out our rump,” “Squeeze this pork butt,” and so on. Kenny thought he was a comedian, but he made his customers uncomfortable. He vowed to lighten things up a bit, and quit using the coarser texts. He made some signs and posted them above the cheese: “What happened after an explosion at a French cheese factory? All that was left was de brie.”

From Guest Contributor, Thomas Pitre

Some morning, early, no sound from worrisome bees, refugees from last summer, moved twice, days after we decided to keep going, to lie, to lay together near the buzzing, pretending a world away from this one:

If I welcome you into my kitchen, to turn one of my forks over your fingers, flipping the metal into your palm, against knuckles, as you talk, too quickly, about what it means to leave her, what we can do with this freedom, I’ll mark the time, exactly, in quick numbers carved into the sink’s rough porcelain, unable, quite, to let the knife go.

From Guest Contributor, Kelli Allen

Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge and holds an MFA from the University of Missouri. She is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Allen gives readings and teaches workshops throughout the US. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, from John Gosslee Books (2012) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

I fell hard for Johnny Carvello. Dagos got me wet. He preferred strippers, ringside tables, hand on crotch, watching them work the pole. Called it “happy dick.” We were the perfect pair, the ex-Mafioso and the car crash cripple. Both, second rate goods. He had a thing for my still-perfect feet, bathed them in rosewater, sucked the toes, jacked himself off all over them. He’d pose me naked, on the bed, do tai chi by candlelight, his eyes on mine. Months into it when he tried to fuck me, I broke it off. The relationship, not the dick.

From Guest Contributor Alexis Rhone Fancher

Alexis is a member of Jack Grapes’ L.A. Poets & Writers Collective. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in RATTLE, BoySlut, The Mas Tequila Review, The Good Men Project, Gutter Eloquence, Cultural Weekly, High Coupe, Tell Your True Tale, Downer Magazine, Bare Hands Anthology, Ireland, The Sun Magazine, The Juice Bar, and elsewhere. Alexis was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2013. She is the poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. Hotnovelist@me.com/alexis@culturalweekly.com

You tell them you don’t want to hold her, you tell them this four times, then you fade, replaced of self by softness, sudden. When you wake, they are placing her on your chest. You cannot see her face, rather one primitive, pink hand, waving something uselessly away. But you can smell her. Her smell is yours, as if your body were turned in, then out, as a glove worn far too long, the wax and weight of you heavy, older, and they have made a wick of that youness and it has been lit for the first time now.

From Guest Contibutor, Kelli Allen

Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge and holds an MFA from the University of Missouri. She is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Allen gives readings and teaches workshops throughout the US. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, from John Gosslee Books (2012) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Buzan was an idiot-savant. His memory was prodigious, but he could not make use of the information he could recall. His parents discovered that he was an extraordinary pianist. He would play a piece through, having only heard it once on the family phonograph. He often “composed” pieces on the spot, some derived from the tones generated by the appliances in his mother’s kitchen, or his father’s shop. Most of his day was spent in the corner of the front porch playing rock, paper, scissors, by himself. The hours would fly by, and Buzan would nap on the porch swing.

From Guest Contributor, Thomas Pitre

Seagulls arced lazy turns as an angry ocean pounded my listing fishing boat. Separated, the submerged boat lights cast a green glow around me, making the ocean even darker as the light trailed into abyss. Floating, my thoughts went to all life in the ocean, reacting, surviving, inching slowly along the ooze and undulating mid-water with goals ingrained. Ocean smell, thick with sea spray and sargassum, cradled me like a childless mother. Dipping below the horizon, the boat disappeared, sunset style, leaving me with only the immensity of space. Gazing at weightless gulls, the blue mire pulled me gently home.

From Guest Contributor Wes Keller