Issue 43

  • Issue 43,  Poetry

    Thirst

    July 17, 2026 / 
    art by Stephen Ground

    by Jesse Wallis

    For the bit of moisture in a dove chick’s brain,
    the Gila woodpecker has been known to drill
    through the soft skulls of unattended nestlings
    while their parents gather seeds. Defenseless,
    the chicks are still alive while this is happening.
    The brooder mourning doves return to carcasses.
    Its forked tongue having never tasted the bitter-
    sweet, fleshy fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge
    of Good and Evil, the woodpecker lives outside
    the airy sphere of right and wrong.

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  • Issue 43,  Poetry

    f train to Roosevelt Island

    July 17, 2026 / 
    art by Trevor Cunnington

    by J. Y. Zhang

    in black tunnels the world slows to molasses
    everything subsonic, the yellow lights drunk and feverish
    flickering across the rusted tracks

    you—a knife through the city again
    blue dot blinking then gone

    cutting through, putting distance:
    velocity in your tongue and smoke
    in your unwashed hair
    urine on the tiles, the soles of your feet

    the fact of motion is simple:
    you are headed somewhere
    or your body is—

    but there’s a moment on the line
    when twin trains run parallel
    &

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  • Issue 43,  Translation

    The Hunt

    July 17, 2026 / 
    art by Nora Ampova

    by Elena Alexieva.
    Translated from the Bulgarian by Yana Ellis

    The fire engine arrived first. The dirt track, which the locals called Kokiche Street, was too narrow for it. The fire engine was like a toy – red, shiny and rectangular. The track wasn’t muddy, just dusty and overgrown with tall grass and all sorts of weeds. It trailed off in a self-proclaimed small dump for building materials, beyond it lay only the meadows. Even when it was silent, the fire engine commanded respect. Inside it sat four firefighters in dark-blue overalls,

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  • Issue 43,  Poetry

    Rooms at the Edge of the World

    July 17, 2026 / 
    art by Beth Kephart

    by Choo En Ting

     

    Choo En Ting  is a Singaporean writer & editor based in Los Angeles. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Sonora Review, Literally, The Foundationalist, Kopi Break Poetry, and elsewhere. He won the USC Undergraduate Writers’ Conference in his sophomore year, and he was awarded a scholarship from the New York State Summer Writers Institute. He has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.
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  • Issue 43,  Poetry

    Nothing Stinks Like Lust in a Young Woman

    July 17, 2026 / 
    art by Virgil Suárez

    by Hajer Requiq

    Nothing stinks like lust
    in a young woman.
    My cannibal heart is drunk
    on its own blood.
    For nearly thirty years,
    it’s eaten nothing but shame.
    Today, it sits in my chest
    like a hump on a hunchback,
    useless and heavy.
    I am still teaching the tornados
    in my body
    to turn into summer breeze.
    My last lover couldn’t make it
    past my mouth.
    My Cerberus tongue
    howling and yowling
    at the gate,

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  • Hybrid,  Issue 43

    Knox, and Breakfast Sundaes

    July 17, 2026 / 
    art by Virgil Suárez

    by Taylor Sykes



    Knox

    We take Route 231 that day to a nowhere town an hour away. We’d heard it was something to do in
    the summer when there was nothing to do in the summer. She says, “I don’t think I’ll do it but I’ll
    watch you.” And I say, “You better get this shit on tape. I want a record of my recklessness.” Just
    another corn town on a yawn of flat road where country kids go when they’re bored.
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