Month: August 2020

Swiping Up

by Renee Agatep

 

From my window, I watched him fall. He tried to jog up to the doorway of my unit and tripped and fell on the balcony for no reason at all. I saw his face in terror, in confusion.

The moment before people fall, yes, that is really something. That is all I’ve photographed since. I set up an elaborate network of booby traps across Miami and rigged them with hidden finish line cameras. I’ve tripped thousands, maybe even millions. I’ve spent months sifting through countless faces so afraid of pain just before they smash into the pavement.

But how fine a thing it will be to watch the one who begins to fall, to see their countenance completely unchanged.

I will know them by the way they surrender with joy for the fleeting moment. In photo finish, they will accept the inevitability of walkway collisions with serenity. They will close their eyes, memorizing the wind of gravity’s grace passing their cheek.

That is the sort of person who will love me.

 

Renee Agatep is a writer and teacher living in Florida. Her recent work appears or is forthcoming in Ellipsis Zine, FlashFlood, Perhappened, Dear Damsels, Rust + Moth, Dunes Review, Malarkey Books, Versification, and others. Renee earned her master’s at Northeastern University and is currently studying creative writing at the University of Central Florida. You can find her on Twitter @GoingbyRenee.

 

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American Wing Collage Series (4 of 6)

by Amy Bobeda

 

Amy is an artist living in Colorado, pursing her MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics. She’s the founder of Wisdom Body Collective–an artist collective exploring the embodiment of the sacred feminine. She’s also the founder of the Ekphrasis Salon. More about her and her work can be found on her website http://blondewanderlust.com

 

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My Father, the Prison Guard

by Gary Fincke

 

My father, the prison guard, says his cells have been opened now, the men he watches going home the same way he does. He says the Governor has freed them, not the virus. He has all the proof he needs—the prison is near the state capital and not one of the inmates is sick.

My father’s friends are guards, too. Three of them visited last week. They brought their wives, but not their children. My father said their names and ours. He said we’re not afraid in this house. We’re not distancing, not my wife, not my son and daughter. Masks are for thieves.

The guests stayed for hours. My mother and the wives, after dinner, sat outside. They drank wine and looked at their phones. They texted their babysitters and told my mother, “Don’t tell our husbands.”

The men drank beer and played poker. They bragged about how they’ve memorized the odds, how they can read each other’s tells. I watched from behind my father. He took a sip of beer when his cards were good. He picked at the label when he bluffed.

My brother and I stayed up past midnight. We watched a show where the host was at home and the audience was as far away as we were. He made fun of men who refused to wear masks, but nobody was there to laugh.

When they were ready to leave, my father hugged his friends. Each one touched his face and laughed. My father repeated, “Trust is love.” He sounded like our priest.

After the house was empty, my father said, “You kids see what strong is? Did you?” He hugged our mother and said, “Say thank you. Say it now before you see how right I am.”

This week, every morning, my mother took my temperature. She took my brother’s and hers, too, but only after my father left for work. “You keep this a secret,” she said. “You tell me if you hear your father cough.”

Today, while we ate breakfast, my father cleared his throat and said, “This thing will pass.” He pulled the thermometer from his pocket and laid it on the table between our cereal boxes. He told us to take a good long look while he cleared his throat again.

“Ok,” he said. He picked it up and pointed it at our mother. “Your mother wants to take my temperature,” he said. My mother bowed her head, but she didn’t fold her hands or move her lips. He pointed the thermometer at my brother. “I told her to go ahead and try.” He pointed it at me. “How’s that sound?” he said. “Like I mean it?”

When my mother whimpered his name, he snapped the thermometer. “How’s that sound?’ he said, his voice hoarse. “Like the end of something?”

None of us moved while he stood up. “I have work to do,” he said. “That’s what they’re paying me for. Being there. Somebody they can count on.”

 

Gary Fincke’s latest collection is The Sorrows (Stephen F. Austin, 2020). Earlier collections were awarded the Flannery O’Connor Prize for Short Fiction and the Elixir Press Fiction Prize. A new flash story, “The Corridors of Longing,” will appear in Best Small Fictions 2020. He is co-editor of the annual anthology Best Microfiction.

 

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Yellow Dirt

by Eva Claire Jordan

 

[Editor’s Note: Click on the triptych below to view it at full size.]

 

Eva Claire Jordan has worked as a landscaper, visual artist, and therapist. She is currently occupied full-time by domestic life in San Jose, California, rising in the black hours before dawn to write at the kitchen table. Her family’s zine, The Corona Times, is archived in Stanford University’s Digital Repository.

 

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American Wing Collage Series (3 of 6)

by Amy Bobeda

 

 

Amy is an artist living in Colorado, pursing her MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics. She’s the founder of Wisdom Body Collective–an artist collective exploring the embodiment of the sacred feminine. She’s also the founder of the Ekphrasis Salon. More about her and her work can be found on her website http://blondewanderlust.com

 

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CNF: Basic Recovery

by Amanda Vineyard

 

Everyone in this room seems angry. They get up and pace or make coffee with an absurd amount of sugar. The lights are dim, and every couple minutes someone new from the “audience” adjusts the temperature. The speakers are shaking, nervous, and unsure. We all have the same problem. Addiction. But I feel so out of place. Some days it’s hard for me to reconcile who I was with who I am today, in this room.

I’ve always wanted to be FBI. I thought the military would be a great avenue. My plans were to retire and apply to the FBI academy. In my head, I knew exactly where I was going in life. I was sworn into the United States Air Force shortly after high school.

It’s one thing to mentally run through a picture-perfect plan over and over. It’s another to live the life. I was nervous about basic training. Dad was Army, and when I was in trouble growing up, I had my own personal drill sergeant. The only thing missing was a hat with the brim that presses against the forehead in times of correction. The yelling didn’t scare me. I think what scared me the most was the thought of failing.

I asked my brother to help prepare me. We worked out together. He’d stop what he was doing and get in my face. He yelled that I was doing everything wrong. I’d get discouraged and slow down. One night he said, “it’s their job to break you down as a civilian and build you up as a solider. Don’t take it personally. Push harder. Don’t let them see you get discouraged.” Those words followed me beyond basic training.

Basic training came and went. During my time there, I pushed as hard as I could. I was chosen to become an element leader. Four out of sixty girls are chosen for this position. On graduation day, I marched in the front row, with the other chosen three. Perfect uniforms. Crisp movements. When we saluted the flag, I felt this overwhelming sense of pride. I puffed my chest out. We made it. We were Airman.

So, how did I get in this room? How did I fall into addiction? Some of the people in this room feel negative. They feel like they have lost hope altogether. There are people here that are cautiously optimistic. I am not cautiously optimistic. I haven’t lost hope. I absolutely refuse to let this be the death of me. I may not be military anymore, but I’m a solider.

Everyone tells me what to do. I’m under court orders and being monitored by a probation officer. My sponsor has guidelines to follow. My husband’s stipulations to see the kids are daunting. I am exhausted by all the rules. This mission feels impossible. Overwhelmed, I can see why people relapse. I understand the caution in the optimism.

My brother’s words ring in my ears, “it’s their job to break you down as a civilian and build you up as a solider”. Except, my heart puts it into context. In my brother’s voice, I hear the words, “the people giving you these guidelines and rules, it’s their job to break you down as an addict, and build you up as the woman I know you are…” Every year, like my graduation, I puff out my chest and hold my head high. Almost six years later and there is nothing basic about this recovery.

 

Today, Amanda is a wife, mother, and student at Missouri State University. Many years ago, she graduated high school with honors and enlisted into the United States Air Force. After she was discharged she lost her way in a world of intravenous drugs. The drug world cost her everything, except her life. August 9, 2014 was the last day she used. Since that day, Amanda has found peace in writing about her experiences. It gives purpose to an otherwise horrific time. She longs to raise awareness and spread hope to addicts and their families. We can recover!

 

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The Execution of Emperor Maximilian by Édouard Manet, 1867-68

by Jo Gatford

 

 

Jo Gatford is a writer who procrastinates about writing by writing about writing. Her work has been published by SmokeLong Quarterly, Litro, PANK, Aesthetica, and elsewhere, as well as winning the Flash500 Prize, the Bath Flash Fiction Prize, and The Fiction Desk Flash Fiction Contest. Her first novel, White Lies, was published by Legend Press in 2014. She is one half of Writers’ HQ (www.writershq.co.uk) and feels very strongly about puns and Shakespeare. Read more of her work at www.jogatford.com.

 

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The American Wing Collage Series (2 of 6)

by Amy Bobeda

 

 

Amy is an artist living in Colorado, pursing her MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics. She’s the founder of Wisdom Body Collective–an artist collective exploring the embodiment of the sacred feminine. She’s also the founder of the Ekphrasis Salon. More about her and her work can be found on her website http://blondewanderlust.com

 

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Coronal

by J.C. Todd

 

everywhere perfumed
lilacs, roses, I forget
the air is viral

outside hospitals
and markets, refrigerator trucks
cool tulips, corpses

prick of salty mist
seaside weather of my cheeks
underneath the mask

 

J. C. Todd is the author of five collections of poetry including Beyond Repair, forthcoming in 2020 from Able Muse Press, and The Damages of Morning, a 2019 Eric Hoffer Award finalist. Winner of the Rita Dove Prize in Poetry and twice a finalist for Poetry Society of America awards, she has received fellowships from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.

 

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CNF: Radiant

by Cynthia Belmont

 

Our mother’s kitchen was blond wood, black Formica, crisp lines, nothing like the bold patterned vinyl 70s kitchens on TV. She kept the counters tidy, one stack of newspapers next to the refrigerator, a menage à trois of Danish jars holding flour, sugar, and salt, a shiny microwave—modern domestic miracle, newly resized and repriced to fit the American household but still manufactured by defense companies until the 1980s. Vietnam was too recent for molecular energy not to be intimidating even though it was Agent Orange and Napalm in Vietnam, not radiation, and neither was this, but these distinctions weren’t really clear, it was a lot of people cooked one way or another. Atoms, molecules, it all sounded radioactive, invisible—you couldn’t see what they did to you inside. The Vietnamese girl in the news picture running naked in the road, you couldn’t see what they had done to her either.

Our mother said, stand back girls, don’t get too close while it’s on. Yes it’s safe, don’t worry, just don’t stand in front of the window while it’s cooking because you never know. It’s like x-rays at the dentist. You have to protect your middle.

The recessed lighting was soft, the bay window lavish with plants. I sat on the floor sometimes while she cooked, watching the red sauce splatter on the steel. When the old oven came to temperature, it issued a whimper like a musical sigh, a sleepy eye opening, cat stretch, balloon released, first star in the sky.

*

I stood at the counter drinking a glass of cold orange juice, staring out idly at the blazing green muggy backyard. My sister came into focus, sunbathing topless. Impossible. There she was, lying next to the crabapple, sunglasses on, sixteen, we never saw each other nude, or our parents, we were a dignified bunch, but there was something different about her, some kind of refusal. Her moods were mystifying. How could she be doing this? All around were two-story houses, and though the yard was heavily landscaped, some of their windows gazed down upon her. She was skinny, barely breasted, but I was ashamed, for her and for myself because she had forced me to see her. And what I saw was like and not like myself.

Everything in our graceful kitchen was suddenly strange, and I was the stranger. I felt exposed, a voyeur. Hot cheeks. This was not a setting for scenes. Also, I realized, I admired her bravado, so alien to me.

*

My sister died of breast cancer at forty-seven. It had spread everywhere, her bones, her organs, her brain, where it finally killed her. How can you have breast tissue in your brain, but you really can. Breast tissue gone wild, leaking, escaped, slinking around inside you, indiscreet, mortally excessive.

I’m ashamed now of my shame as a girl and now. But she isn’t. Not her. Little sister, her pale ribby chest is still out there in the garden. Baking, burning in glory under the sun.

 

Cynthia Belmont is Professor of English and Gender and Women’s Studies at Northland College, an environmental liberal arts school in Ashland, WI, on the South Shore of Lake Superior. Her writing has appeared in diverse journals, including Poetry, Cream City Review, Oyez Review, River Teeth, and Terrain.org.

 

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The American Wing collage series, 1 of 6

by Amy Bobeda

 

 

Amy is an artist living in Colorado, pursing her MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics. She’s the founder of Wisdom Body Collective–an artist collective exploring the embodiment of the sacred feminine. She’s also the founder of the Ekphrasis Salon. More about her and her work can be found on her website http://blondewanderlust.com

 

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Honey

by Jocelyn Ulevicus

 

Yesterday, for no reason, I remembered
the carousel at Misquamicut Beach,
the joy I felt when I was a kid riding
the flying horses and how, as I got older,
the distance between the hotel where
my family stayed, and the carousel
became less and less as I got older, I
didn’t have to ask for a ride anymore—
the carousel, now reachable by my two legs
and not my father’s car, my two legs, eager
to walk, to burn off calories, so I could be,
so I could become the elusively thin
and perfect person I’d continue trying
to be my entire life.

For everyday since, it has been summer.

When yesterday, I took a shower
to wash the sweat off my skin
from the workout routine I performed
in the kitchen, the routine I executed
in secret, in private, like when I was
a twelve-year-old girl, dropping down
to do sit-ups, spreading my legs apart to do
squats I looked down the left side of
my body, inspecting my waistline, my hip,
to see if there were stretch marks I
wasn’t forty-one anymore, but that
twelve-year-old girl doing the same thing
I could see the bottle of Herbal Essence
shampoo, the pale blue tile on the wall,
my father’s navy-blue razors,
my mother’s Ivory soap—

The memory came
and then settled back into my body as
an absolute and unbearable and
insurmountable disorder, I wanted
to escape it, I wanted to free myself from
the suggestion of mere survival, but
the bones in my ankles hurt and I’d
forgotten to write down the apple I ate,
the quarter of an apple I ate, I sucked in
my gut.

My heart pounded in my chest as
if it were an extension from the
past. I turned the faucet off and
let the water trace lines down my
body, I held a quiet palm in front
of my face to inspect it. Afterward,
I went into the kitchen naked
and licked honey off of my fingertips.
I told the kitten, I’m going to invent
a new woman. Then, I put some
clothes on and some shoes and
went for a walk.

 

Bio

 

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Breathing Lessons & Special

by Darlene Scott

 

 

 

 

 

darlene anita scott is a poet and mixed media visual artist. Her photography has been featured in Barren Magazine, Persephone’s Daughters, and The Auburn Avenue. Her artwork has been featured in The Journal, Star 82 Review, and The West Review. Scott’s recent poetry appears in the anthologies Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry and Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matters Era, a volume she co-edited. Scott lives in Virginia.

 

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Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.

Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.

Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.

Submissions

Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again March 15, 2023. Submit here.

Upcoming

09/09 • Rae Gourmand
09/16 • Chiwenite Onyekwelu
09/23 • TBD
09/30 • TBD