Five Poems by Anis Mojgani

Evelyn Mother Dear’s voice sounded like the cigarette. She was sitting in her room on her bed when mom and I walked in. I didn’t know where I was– in the car I had stared out the window looking at the sky. The streets of New Orleans East were always so foreign to me with […]

Sara Lippmann’s Read it Loud: “The Magic Fish”

This is the latest in Sara Lippmann’s Read it Loud: Notes From Storytime. To go to the column page, please click here. It is good to want things. We are brought up to want, and although the state of our country might indicate otherwise, ours is a nation founded on the ethos of hard work […]

Three Poems by Layne Ransom

What Am I Drinking? Today, kerosene. Toxic sting weirdly soothing. This is no adolescent stunt, no high school boys in button-up anime shirts unbuttoned, spitting fire to impress unimpressed girls. You know the kind.  No, I eat matches. Cradle this lantern belly. Shepherd the moths fluttering around my lips, paper thin lambs. They just want […]

“Knowledge” by David Spicer

As a Pisces, my favorite food is the strawberry. Don’t ask me why, because my raspy voice will murder your geometric ears. Though I’ll behave with a subdued yin-yang humility, don’t request me to be your apartheid comrade. I’d rather box a grenade in the nude or scribble my blushes with a bloody cutlass under […]

UFR Presents: “Notes from a Burning Underground: Part II” by Jonathan Callahan

Part I of Jonathan Callahan’s Notes from a Burning Underground can be found in Keyhole 11. He is actively seeking a publisher for both Part III as an excerpt, and, in book form, the novella as a whole. Contact him at jonathancalla@gmail.com. His first book, The Consummation of Dirk, was selected by judge Zachary Mason […]

“Pictures in Paris” by Jessica Hollander

For pictures in Paris she stood in the street, I stood on the curb, neck strained, skinny arm around her uneven shoulders; and she still a giant, sloped and folded, shocking in that way between horse-like and glamour magazine. I have trouble at weddings not being sarcastic. DID YOU APPROVE THIS PART ABOUT THE PRINCE […]

Five Poems by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

Amanda has fat goblets of reef water for eyes, champagne for laughter, and the entire pantheon of 70s rock as her soundtrack. She dated my brother. She eats constantly and weighs nothing. She is half Dutch, half Puerto Rican, half fantasy girl. She only wears her glasses when she was tired. Weeps constantly. Makes mixtapes […]

“It Becomes The Love You Take” by Madison Langston

Most mornings you were in the sink. A feeling resulting from a lack of interest. To discover a process of remembering. To imagine a narrative. Or to build one. Our bedroom, barely lit. Something constantly unraveling–revealing we are made of bone. Another room, with walls. Only words inside. Sometimes I remember our babysitter. Long brown […]

“Safekeeping” by Meg Tuite’s Exquisite Quartet

This is the latest in Meg Tuite’s Exquisite Quartet. To go to the column page, please click here. Hugo had been waiting for his chance to get the hell away from the stench and tedium of another day working at Burger King. The same somnolent grubs made their way in every morning for coffee and […]

Five Fictions by Joshua R. Helms

County Fair Michael and his brother aflutter. Michael and his cotton candy mouth. Michael’s brother holding Michael’s sticky hands. Their parents lingering at the funnel cakes and hot dogs. Michael’s friends in line at the Ferris wheel. A younger cousin pulling at the back of Michael’s shirt. Michael and his brother on the merry-go-round, one […]