ISSUE 96

Fiction
Orbital Debris - Jennifer S. Davis
Remuneration - J. David Stevens
Touching Down - Jill Logan
Anatomy of Same-Hearted Animals - Catherine Carberry

Poetry
"Hill Country, Unreachable" - Laura Van Prooyen
"Seaside" - Rachel Richardson
"Misha and the Grave" - Aaron Ballance
"History Island" - Thomas Lux
"Rearview Mirror: January" - Alison Prine
"The Supervillian's Handbook" - Mike Smith
"Ode to the Northbound Greyhound Overnight Express" - Michael Mlekoday
"The Altruist" - Allison Eir Jenks
"The Truth is" - Staci R. Schoenfeld
"Last Morning with Steve Orlen" - Michael Collier
"Alamo Theory II" - Josh Bell
"Road" - Fred Cardin
"Flight" - Mark Wagenaar
"Confession" - William Wright
"Smokey and the Bandit [1977]" - Martin Arnold
"The Only House in the Neighborhood" - Sarah Rose Nordgren
"Skunk Cabbage Testament" - Kay Hays

HILL COUNTRY, UNREACHABLE
by Laura Van Prooyen

Out here, I hook messages
to vulture wings. l tell feral hogs

about my sister's cancer,
and the run away. Cliffs

slap back my voice. God?
I don't know if silence

is like an ocean. I'm swirling
in a canyon riddled with shells.

Hear me, my sister has cancer
and every time they go in,

they find more. A new spot
or score of cells exposed,

like the scorpion I didn't hope
to find under the stone.