art by Andrew Velazquez

by Courtney Hitson

The Fort Lauderdale Air Show’s slated to start in 13 minutes. A mom, almost not-frowning, poses sculptures of fruit: her striated shell of a hollowed watermelon becomes a shark’s gaping maw stuffed with grapes. A pineapple turns to an owl, complete with cross-sectioned, orange-slices of eyes and leaves divvied into flanks. Teenagers selfie their faces into whimsical pouts, as if yard gnomes flirting with sentience. Adorable and invasive parakeets spectate the scene from a perimeter of unlit tiki torches. They are gossipy rascals,

art by Stephen Ground

by Catherine Buck

We met at the place where water plunged over ground, where everyone met in song and story and so it seemed a fitting place for a rendezvous of our own.

You found me seated on the boulder. When the rains came hardest they’d coat the surface slick, so I always checked the skies to confirm I was in no danger. That day, the rock was dry and the sun directly overhead. My feet waited flat on the stone and I could feel the beginnings of a burn.

art by Virgil Suárez

by Steven Dampf

I forage for leaves and fallen bark in the park. Looks like an old face. I’ll make a sculpture, and become acquainted with it, the shedded skin from the still-breathing cherry blossoms. I’ll lay the pink flowers over a plate of paste and dry it into paper for my poetry, and melt whatever’s left into soy wax for a candle. Light it during my moments that turn out as defining moments, and one day associate the aroma with this stage in my young life.

by JV Dias

art by Virgil Suárez

January 8, 2023^[1] 

I – 09:15 AM – WAKE UP!

My father enters the room in a disordered manner. The door swings open with excessive force, slams against the wall, then recoils a few inches, trembling before surrendering to the weight of its own wood. The impact tears me entirely out of sleep. I do not wake gradually, but all at once, my body rigid and my heart racing from the shock. For a few seconds,

art by Virgil Suárez

by Forrest Rapier

Forrest Rapier has poetry and prose forthcoming in 2River and Midway Journal. His debut collection, As the Den Burns, was published by Texas Review Press in 2022. Recently, he received the Dean’s Award for Doctoral Excellence at Florida State University and he is a finalist for the 2026 Apogee Poetry Chapbook Award.

Instagram: @forrest.rapier

Virgil Suárez was born in Havana,