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Reflective Surfaces by Ryan Purcell
I’ve got this mental picture of you glimpsed in the reflection of a storm door closing.You wouldn’t look at me as I left and I wouldn’tturn around to see if you looked afterbut I caught you peeking.That meant a lot at the time,but not enough to turn around. I don’t regret it…
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A Peculiar Count in Time, Part 1 by M.K. Beutymhill
“He is the man who knows everything, and never dies.” -Voltaire Lahore, India May, 1869Isabella Cooper, age 15 I first learned of the mysterious Count of St. Germain, while neglecting my Latin studies in favor of eavesdropping. I stopped fanning myself with my straw bonnet, attention piqued, and glanced around the…
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Crow Barn by DC Diamondopolous
The rope pulled at Calypso’s waist. She staggered then stumbled as she clawed her way up the hill with Phoebe tied below. They had been searching for Alawisha, their younger sister, since her disappearance the day before. Hunger, thirst, and fatigue were ignored as panic pushed them to the edge…
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My Hips: Myrtle Beach Pavilion, Circa 1978 by Carol Parris Krauss
Fireball. Gorgar. Wizard.The pull. pinball release. Careening bullet, zipper flippers, Bumpers, and roll-over targets. A supple wrist and keen eyes. English bank shots. The Who. At 60, this is my hip pain. Also, my favorite peach halter, embroidered elephant leg bell bottoms, and hips slender, young leaning against Flash. Pain free. Now. A silver ball bouncing nerves. Fracturedbone bumping…
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Six Seeds by Alicia Fitton
Inspired by Alice Godliman’s poem Pomegranite Seeds Myth recounts that Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and taken as his wife to the Underworld. Her furious mother, Demeter, goes to fetch her daughter back, but all who eat the food of Hades are condemned to remain and Persephone has eaten just…
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Mission Bell by Rory Tanner
“Nobody knows where it was cast. But they do tell a story about it: that it was pledged to St. Joseph in the wars with the Moors, and that the people of some besieged city brought all their plate and silver and gold ornaments and threw them in with the…
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Sleeping Beauty by Christina Ciufo
In a decrypted charcoal stone tower interwoven with thorn vines, beyond the tattered, transparent white veil, lays a slumbering angelic maiden, cursed by a covetous fairy who recited a veracious incantation on her Christening. Her marble face remains untouched for hundreds of years, while the world, a time she once…
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Every Scar Has a Story by Laure Van Rensburg
The first time she ran into her old-self she was home for the weekend. The day had started with a burning smell. Standing outside the station, Abby was finishing a cigarette when she smelt her mistake. Her training kicked in. She dropped the stub, shaking her fingers before sucking the…
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The Light That Shone Here by Ciéra Cree
This place of shadow is discontent a mouth spitting out lips of blackan alleyway unsheltered.Wasn’t there a streetlight here? What breath does out of sun goes unrecorded.Perhaps that’s for the better.Run along, sweet child, with a face like yours a fate won’t last long untampered This sphere is a rather heavy dark, obscure to see you…
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gray as melancholy by Linda M. Crate
time heals all woundsor so they say,but i know that’s not true; nineteen going on twenty years and i still think of you— i wish you could’ve felt enoughlove to stay,but perhaps that day the nightmareswere stronger than any dreamthat could’ve saved you; but i miss you, uncle— i hope that…