The doctor said, “You won’t walk again, Michael,” and poof Jenny Diller appeared looking exactly the same, curly hair parted in the middle with pouted lips concealing gapped teeth. She had enthusiastic eyes that hung above a weak smile, a face that said she was in it for the show, it was all a game.
Thou preparest a bed before me
in the presence of ineffable pleasures;
thou annointest my psalm with love’s oil of bitter herbs;
my smile withers up.
What if I had come to you
instead of Dad that night, crying and afraid of myself?
I went to Dad because he never told me not to hold
my wrists like that.
placed high and then low
sulking and eager
life
at odds with life
His poems, she could tell, were bad. She listened intently, however, her ears straining for any hint of voluptuousness or sensuality. But as far as she could tell, his poems were about buildings: concrete, and tarp blowing in the wind, and steel and construction. The word “steel” excited her whenever he said it. She wondered if, underneath it all, it could be about love.
Nonpliable, creaking, aching to be grazed
by the mouth of the man from the Mediterranean.
He’s indecisive and belongs to another.
It’s all wrong.
As she pulled on her old navy pea jacket, Ellen could see Lenny at work on the leaves at the side of the house. She figured it would be okay to leave for about an hour. She waved goodbye to him as she walked down the driveway.
He watches him take a sip of his gin and tonic, and it makes him feel uneasy. Another man drinking his drink, tasting what he tastes, foreign lips touching a part where his once touched. Pine trees, incense, lips touching lips.
ESSAY / Little Minds Like Me / Nina Fillari
She played the video and I spent the remainder of my time burning a hole into the screen with my eyes. I watched the instructor move the yarn one way, then another and focused on all the moving parts. I swore those written instructions were in Latin or something, I thought. This is much easier.
FILM / Captain Canada's Movie Rodeo / December 2023 / Gabriel Ricard
Gabe ends this year optimistically in the latest Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo.
TELEVISION / The Brutal Brilliance of Babylon Berlin / Corey Paige
Babylon Berlin is set in Berlin when it was the center of the world for brassy jazz, exquisite drinking, all night dancing, artistic expression, and breathtaking sex. All of it happening as the worst imaginable nightmares are waiting for them right around the corner.
FILM / The Bittersweet Melancholy of Expiration Dates / Kathy Nguyen
The pineapple, familiar to him but unfamiliar and spoken at random to her, becomes a question that was left hanging in the air between people, an undercurrent of unspoken words that were meant to be inwardly contained and never to be directly processed.
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR / December 2023 / Kolleen Carney-Hoepfner
I hope the holidays are peaceful and filled with love.
The second I stepped onto the porch, the Plymouth’s roar rang out, shattering the silence before Chad killed the engine and exited the car in his ripped blue jeans. With his left hand, he presented me with a water-sprinkled rose. Like a ballroom dancer, Chad took my right hand and spun me into his arms. The scene felt unlike anything I had ever read or imagined before.
We flipped around and there he was, his bleached Mohawk tamed by a grey Armani suit, he cheek-kissed us both, as if he knew who we were, then wrapped his famous arm around my waist and pranced us in like we were super models, guiding us into the living room where his very pregnant partner, Perri Lister, serenaded guests dressed exactly like us, as they nibbled chocolate chip cookies, sipped milk, and bounced toddlers on their laps.
“Everything makes you sad,” Rickie said.
“I don’t like when things die,” Benjie said.
“Get used to it,” Jimmie said. He looked past the backyard to the tracks. “There’s a lot of death in life.”
A wedding bouquet of heavy rain, honeyed hatred and wasabi almonds.
Dandelion hands over a roaring campfire, too afraid to touch
Your house-of-cards heart and anvil of expectations
I can sense the distance between us.
A distance beyond geographical measurement,
but as small as the last drawn-out letter of a whisper.
I cursed the sun
for coming back
without your shadow
and all the answers
as to why mine shifts
alone