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Pal O Mine

April 24, 2026 Fiction, Issue 31, Issue 31 Fiction

When asked what number Pal O Mine should run under, Moses had said, “Number seven or number three. Them’s divine numbers, alright. God made this whole world in seven days. And He’s a trinity: Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Cain’t go wrong with three neither.”

It wasn’t often that a Negro at the racetrack was asked his opinion such as this, but Moses was respected by the horse’s owner, so when it came time to prepare for the 1938 Carolina Jessamine Invitational, Mrs. Pynchon-Grant went right up to Moses and told him to pick the number.

The number seven would have put the stallion too far right of the field and closer to the stands of crowds, and so would have caused further distraction that would have leaked through Pal’s blinders and earplugs. That far out in the field and the thunder of the spectator’s cheers would drown out the footfalls of Pal’s competitors, and so the number three would put the colt closer to the center of action and increase the odds of victory—should he be able to run.

If You Are Learning English

April 24, 2026 Issue 31, Issue 31 Poetry, Poetry

By LAUREN DELAPENHA

consider articulation, both speech
and the assembly of a joint,
the cooperation of bones and
marijuana; English: Mary Jane:
shoe, or the talentless friend you
secretly love who is also the pretty,
skirted woman in Spiderman who

Rescue

April 24, 2026 Fiction, Issue 31, Issue 31 Fiction

by JULIET MCSHANNON

The dog is crossing a circle. Dawn light catching silver strands on a gray coat, saliva on a panting tongue, a red collar. A lost dog.

For an instant, we lock eyes, then I continue around and take the north exit. I’m in a hurry to get to the meet-up point. My first time running with others and I’m dreading it, but doctor’s orders and all that. Besides, I’ve promised my husband. I will be late, I will be late, I will be late, I say through my teeth, then pull over to look for the dog.

Undoing

April 24, 2026 Issue 31, Issue 31 Poetry, Poetry

By HUGO DOS SANTOS

Despite the brief streaks of self-
belief, a stubborn defeat pervades.
Absent a job, absent a title.

I want to declare: a great undoing has taken place.
And I don’t know where to search for the bricks
that once made up the house of who I used to be.

In Place of River I’ll Use [God]

April 24, 2026 Issue 31, Issue 31 Poetry, Poetry

By EZZA AHMED

Ten days behind my tongue
summer in the diasporic,
riding thick in the smell of [God]
and fresh cloves.

By [God] I mean the monsoon season
where water appeared in snake-like streams
erasing all traces of my
present tense.

The Back Meets the Nose

April 24, 2026 Essays, Issue 31, Issue 31 Essays

By EMILY NEMENS

She was running along the Manhattan side of the East River—this was in the bucolic “before” times, prior to when the city tore up the East Village’s riverside park, chucking its eighty-year-old trees and modernist amphitheater and ebullient perennial flower beds in the name of future flood mitigation—when she felt a curtain being snapped up the back of her left calf, krrrrrik! More lightning than pain. At first. Then, it became very painful. A hot pain that ran an invisible line down the meat of her calf, like those sexy stockings with seams, but the seams had turned carnivorous and were nibbling at her flesh with tiny razor teeth. Running farther, even slow-jogging the 1.3 miles home, was out of the question (her mental math: more pain multiplied by less time in transit, or less pain times more minutes; the latter had the lower sum), so she slowly limped back from the river, putting as little weight on her left foot as possible. She wondered what she would do.

My Cousin Thinks I Gave Her Nazr

April 24, 2026 Issue 31, Issue 31 Poetry, Poetry

By EZZA AMHED

Because I didn’t say Mashallah when she swapped her nose stud for a hoop and two days later I’m met by the bursting bulb of blood and pus which seals the fibrous innards of her nose cartilage on the outside sits the bulb pulsing expanding as if it’s breathing looks like a red evil eye ornament white pupil right at the center she has a nose growing out of her nose

Deaccessioning

April 24, 2026 Issue 31, Issue 31 Poetry, Poetry

By RACHEL HADAS

The old woman with the art
paces through her silent rooms,
sunlight reflecting off the frames.
Adult children live downstairs
in the basement. Whose is the art?
Is it the world’s or hers or theirs?

The Strays

April 24, 2026 Fiction, Issue 31, Issue 31 Fiction

By RUSSELL BRAKEFIELD

Reggie pulled his truck up the driveway and past the old goat pasture, a field of knee-high brome that now fed only a rusted tractor, not a buck or a nanny in sight. The only good thing about his wife’s death all those years ago—he could finally let go of the shaggy herd she had loved so much, fill the freezer, and focus on the more agreeable ruminants.

Reggie killed the ignition next to the house. One coal-colored cloud floated like a top hat above his yellow lopsided rancher. Past that, the afternoon sun painted the foothills a fiery mauve. In the distance a trio of bluffs gave way to an abstract canvas, just cattle and rust-red desert smudging south to New Mexico and on into the Navajo Nation.

U N C O N T A I N A B L E

April 24, 2026 Issue 31, Issue 31 Poetry, Poetry

By L. S. KLATT

I leave the house unlocked & walk to the garage jacked to
The White Stripes. My mouth is a guitar; snow is in the sound hole.
Spring. I think it’s spring. The automatic door leaps

in its tracks & is music again. I record on my phone a soundwave
as the GTO convertible wheels out of its tomb, the driveway
chartreuse with maple wings. Tell White I’ll cut some garlic

Pal O Mine

If You Are Learning English

Rescue

Undoing

In Place of River I’ll Use [God]

The Back Meets the Nose

My Cousin Thinks I Gave Her Nazr

Deaccessioning

The Strays

U N C O N T A I N A B L E

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