It's been hot. Everything's hot. Global temperatures, national temperaments—even the bees that hover at the birdbath's edge are plunging into its waters, only to find them warmed by an unrelenting heat dome. What to do? Writers Resist offers a cool escape: Don a wet t-shirt, flop before a fan, and read this issue. In it, you'll [...]
By Katie Avagliano I'm not saying cannibalism is the only option. If we're talking animalistic magnetism—the old horizontal tango-—there are other ways to dispose of the sperm vehicles. Sure, arachnids control their own widowhood, and half of all Chinese mantises have copulations that end in the death of the male. In response, though, the male [...]
By Zoë Fay-Stindt I sing to the green anole in a made-up lizard language— fiddling tongue, whirlwinds and whistle- clucks. He curves his neck, ear hole craned to my porch perch. He pinks his bubble-throat. For years, I saw devil horns peeking from each human head. Yes, the chemical, the highway framed with fields and [...]
By Laura Grace Weldon If a grizzly wanders into your social media don’t make eye contact or sudden moves. Abandon the sandwich you were eating, leave the small square of chocolate you saved for last. Sharks often appear in parking garages silent, stealthy, even as you confine your blood’s scent under a coat pulled tight, [...]
By Howie Good Artist’s Statement My handmade collages are intended as a rebuke to the lifeless perfection of Photoshopped images. They are also intended to provoke an authentic response by combining images in a way that challenges old habits of seeing. Howie Good is a poet and collage artist on Cape Cod. His latest poetry books [...]
By Jennifer A. Swallow After several dozen first dates over beer and mozzarella sticks—none of which had led to a second—I decided to change the format. I planned to meet a guy in the park for a midmorning stroll. No pressure. Just a walk and a chat. I told him we could meet at the [...]
By Flavian Mark Lupinetti when the gun smoke clears and the EMTs bring the bodies to my ER and I ask why they bothered and they say we need someone to pronounce them most times I say you pronounced them just fine but today I can’t bear to make that joke because these aren’t so [...]
By Dia Calhoun for Ukraine, 2022 Because the woman hugs a green glass bottle yellow-wicked, and waits by the fabric store where she once bought the blue wool for her coat, the scarlet gingham for the kitchen window, coral flannel to snuggle her baby somewhere now on the pouring road to Poland— Veni Magna Spirita [...]
Because Extraordinary Times Require Extraordinary Adornment By Tracy Rose Stamper Welcome to RevlOff’s Lip Couture Counter, where science blends with art, topped off with attitude, to bring you colors to carry you through dizzying days. Our makeup counter’s mission is to challenge the slippery slope into post-truth society. By offering an honest line of honest [...]
By Eric Abalajon My coffee tries to push back the basement chill crawling up my legs, as I read a friend’s message. I want to describe to you my table, Mayamor. I remember your poem where you simply list the towns won over by, and sustaining, the movement. It was, however, a security issue to [...]
By Heather Dorn Barbie’s feet come preformed for sexiness, but the rest of us must learn to curve our arches like a playground slide. We start young, even as babies, barely able to walk, staggering up church or pageant stage steps—sparkling quarter inch heels, lace dresses, makeup bruising our eyelids blue, punching our cheeks red. [...]
By Penny Perry For my Aunt Leona Heyert Tarleton who died at age 33 We are looking at the mockingbird in the lemon tree. This is the first day of my cousin’s summer visit. I wriggle closer to her. “I know how my mother died,” my cousin whispers. The gazebo is the place for secrets. [...]
By René Marzuk We walk to the edge of the pond at the far end of the backyard—a pond dirty and small, slightly bigger than a bathtub—filled with plants and fish carefully chosen for their ability to survive off each other. “An ecosystem,” you offer. A grubby Eden. Colored shapes appear and disappear within the murky [...]
