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An Immersive Experience by Darren Bradley Jones
No one knows why the aliens decided to land off the coast of Costa Rica.
Landed is the wrong word. They hovered above the ocean, the space between the base of their vessel and the water below unreachable. David and Venus had seen photos taken from a distance, the vessel looked like a hole in the image, a shard of obsidian or onyx dropped onto a page. Had they landed in the water with any force, their ship would’ve flooded the small beaches, driving out the tax-evading locals and bronzed ex-pats selling woven jewelry and knick-knacks from folding tables,
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Five Saints by Ann Pedone
[A strange girl.
She wanted to be a pilgrim
and so ate salt for three days.
Now she knows how to be vast
and compassionate. And yet she too
will be drowned in the sea.]
[At the burning of offerings
inside the room we appease the ghost.
Lift up our arms
and watch the women around us
turn into birds.]
[Who are you to talk of a woman’s breasts]
[I have been left in warm sand.
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Traces so Patient, so Pure by Emma DePanise
From plume to basin, molecule to mortar, this flawed forgetting
flows, this cascading remembrance claws, clamors. And maybe
I was built to forget the topography
of your nose so I could remember the next
man’s eyes, coins I collect from corners
and floors to leave in crumbs at the bottom
of my purse. Maybe I was built to forget your tongue
on my thighs, your shower towel, how it soured
my nose,
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How to Heal By Vanessa Escobar
- Drink lots of water. Pee constantly.
- Listen to SZA and Travis Scott’s song “Love Galore.” Dance around your apartment while you sing along to the lyrics. Pretend you are rapping the song for maximum effect.
- Avoid every bar you visited before and during knowing her. No good comes from the drink overtaking you, especially if she’s there too.
- Go indoor rock climbing. Scale up a cliff that no one forced you to. You will feel weak, but you carried your entire body weight all the way to the top. Try to get back down slowly.
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An Interview with MFA ’21 Gina Chung and an Excerpt from her Debut Novel “Sea Change”
Interview by Jonathan Kesh
Gina Chung’s debut novel, Sea Change, applies a touch of the speculative to a deeply interior story.
The protagonist, Ro, is an isolated, directionless woman in her early thirties who spends her days handling sea life at an aquarium. Her mother is estranged, her father disappeared during an expedition to the climate change-induced “Bering Vortex,” and her boyfriend has just dumped her to join an experimental Mars colonization program. All that’s keeping Ro afloat is her bond with an old octopus at the aquarium named Dolores,
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Two Poems by Pietro Federico “New Jersey” and “West Virginia” Translated From the by Italian John Poch
photos by Giovanni Chiaramonte
WEST VIRGINIA
The shack is like a bone half-buried
in the forest of West Virginia.
The two of them live there married.
How black the pigment of their skin
and the hollows of their mouths.
The wrinkles at the corners of their eyes
radiate like wind-struck tears.
Their clarity the only thing clear.
Angels.
