Heidi Czerwiec

Means of Labor   With adoption, the issue of labor is an issue of labor. When the birth mother Kinzey agrees to meet me and Evan, and throughout her pregnancy, she’s a struggling single mom working at Subway, a fast-food job in a right-to-work state that depresses wages, keeps its workers depressed, oppressed, pressed for…

Bradley Sides

Peaches’ Menagerie   Peaches sat alone on her front porch. Although the rain splattered against her face and onto her thick, gray-rimmed glasses, she didn’t go inside. She insisted on greeting the child. There had been no phone calls or letters announcing the arrival. Still, she knew, so she waited. Her oak rocker moved with…

Robert Walicki

Birdman   I’m not supposed to know it, The name for this place— No signs, as if everyone here has been here before, I shouldn’t need to ask directions   To the doors opening to the sounds of electricity, The dirty buzzer opening me to a room even dirtier,   To Glenn, whom I’ve seen…

Jeffrey Bolden

A Blues for Niah   Part One “I see my Blade has fallen in love with the Hand of God. ” Blu stooped in the canopy of cherry blossoms. The pink petals disguised the silhouette of an assassin unseen in the summers of Corruption, U.S.A. It was one of those rare days where happiness accompanied…

Aden Thomas

He Runs into the Wind   This is not a Wyoming love story. There are no beautiful sunsets here, no, not in this tale; no cowboys and cowgirls dressed up like mannequins in a Wrangler store, no flash where your grandfather caught your grandmother’s eye at some dinner party out on the deck at someone’s…

Shaun Turner

Shopping Habits   Each year, in a symbolic gesture, the president pardons two turkeys. Last year, President Obama granted two, Tater and Tot, the stay. This year, Donald J. Trump pardoned Drumstick and Wishbone. Together, the four will live the rest of their lives on the campus of Virginia Tech, to be able to gobble…

Sheila Squillante

The Greenland Shark   Description and Habitat Greenland sharks flourish in the waters around Iceland. They move through the northern Atlantic and Arctic oceans, huge and old and slow as mountains. Approaching the heft of the Great White, they eat whatever they want—apex predator/crafty scavenger—and could eat you, too, but for the icy, inhospitable habitat…

Alex DiFrancesco

The Wind, the Wind   Listen: There at the end, we took up a collection of all we had left. Gone were the makeshift explosives that had derailed the train, the bullets that had cut down the soldiers who tried to escape, gone was our hope we would make it the six months lifespan our…

Danielle Hanson

Building a Mountain   Piling rocks isn’t so hard.  You do the same thing One wheelbarrow after another. The dirt comes for free as the rocks settle. Maybe jump on them a few times to be certain. The paths are there from the wheelbarrow tracks. Simple, really.  And once it’s tall enough, By God, some…