Online Issues
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Time Flows Like Water; Sunshine For 10,000 Miles, A Love That Fills The Bed; Hello, September
Three Poems by A Hua, translated from the Chinese by Xuelan Su and Kathy Z. Fan
Time Flows Like Water
Use growth rings to tell the story. Get pine resin to seal it in history.
Leave the stump for egrets to perch on.At Weishan Lake, as spring winds blow away the chaos of March,
wetlands burst with birdsong and flower-scent,leaves jostled by rain and pearls of dew become like small boats that bob and sway.
… later, after lake waters recede,
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Country Ghosts
art by Mia Broecke, "eye"
by Francesca Diano, translated from the Italian by Laura Valeri
The two di Franco sisters lived alone. The younger one, all the same old, was rather short, with a big long nose, eyes like two boiled eggs, and hair dyed a brick red color. The older sister was tall and lanky, with white hair so thin that it showed the rosy hue of her scalp, wore her hair in a bun – a tiny little bun that looked like a bird’s nest. They had a big beautiful house downtown,
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There and Back and Back Again Again
photo by Tony Wallin-Soto
by George Choundas
You walk briskly to catch the train. Couple of blocks to go. Running late. Even chances you’ll make it. Then you see something fifty yards ahead, darting into your path from a side street. It’s another commuter, also running late. He’s looking at his wristwatch and jittery. Like you, he vibrates as much he moves, clearly fraught with decisional anguish, debating whether to break into a sprint. Then he turns and catches sight of you. In a moment’s glance, he appraises. He notes you’re walking and not running, and presumably gathers up indications of credibility—who knows,
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What is Special About Dusk
photo collection of the author
by Katiy Heath
A cloud would soon billow out, a considerable mass, smoky red; a disorientating blanket of color, devilish red, divine red, nuclear and unnatural. Yet nature is what would send red into our tender hearts on the afternoon of this annular eclipse. From the Latin word annulus, meaning little ring. Like a hula hoop, a donut, a CD. A little band of light left after the moon moves across the sun, obstructing all but a six percent sliver. Little—130 miles wide—ring of fire that we didn’t have to put ourselves in the path of,
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My Life in Three Train Rides: Powder, Rails, Arrests
photo by Tony Wallin-Sato
by Tony Wallin-Sato
Part 1
fukaku irite / kamiji no oku o / tazunureba / mata ue mo naki / mine no matsukazeFollowing the paths the gods passed over, I seek their innermost place; up and up to the highest of all: peak where wind passes through pines. – Saigyo
I was thirteen when I was first arrested. Detained. Humiliated. Treated as if I already hit puberty. At thirteen I still carried my baby fat. Just had my braces removed.
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The Garden Wall
by Lorraine Hanlon Comanor
“We’re going to get along famously,” said my new neighbor, a realtor in his early seventies, as he bent over to admire one of my planters. “Both of us having green thumbs. But this garden isn’t up to our standards.”
He was referring to a ten-foot-wide strip between our two houses of red sage, polygala, hydrangeas, and marguerites that extended some seventy feet back from the street. The bird-and-butterfly-friendly plot, which my former neighbors and I had congenially maintained, was shaded by two ornamental pears and a holly tree. Like all gardens in our public urban development,
