In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Don’t Leave a Good Time Looking for a Good Time Michael Bazzett (bio) is advice I received from a colleaguewith an incongruous ponytailwho once gave his students a testwith only one problem: Define Mathematics.He looked wistful as he relayedtheir consternation and befuddlementover a bowl of forlorn noodlesin the school cafeteria. When

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: 404 Peter Kispert (bio) Charles was getting better—healing I mean, after last year had tortured us both—and it was completely ruining the plan. For the better part of two years, we spent sleepless nights in small single-floor sublets in and around Boston, living among broken ovens and cheap white fridges that shook themselves awake and

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: The Barest Horizon: Jamel Brinkley’s “Bartow Station” Garth Greenwell (bio) One of my questions about “Bartow Station,” from Jamel Brinkley’s second collection, Witness, is what makes the story seem so bottomlessly deep, since really it’s quite simple, quite contained in its materials. Narrated by an unnamed, youngish man, it takes place

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Planter Box Conceit, and: Be With Cate Lycurgus (bio) Planter Box Conceit How vain, to anticipate what’s beensown, foretell how the buriedwill swell. Zucchini overwhelmthe raised beds—stems straight-armout with stop-sign palms—so wide, sodeeply lobed—no companioncan grow alongside, but—whereare we merely asked to whelm? Underthe foliage

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Maroon Sonia Feigelson (bio) My father wants to buy me a bikini. “It’s not an option,” he says, “to wear some ratty old thing to the infinity pool.” I prefer to be ratty, which is our central problem. My father is devoted to proving that he knows the truth about me. To him, the world is not a matter of needing but of acquiring. Just kidding

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Before the DMZ, and: Faint Cindy Juyoung Ok (bio) Before the DMZ My moth- er sent a photo of the federal build- ing she was being naturalized in, writing, Boring I love you. That winter her father revealed he left behind a first wife, two kids, north before the war, the news unremarkable because For us, everybody had somebody they— So

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Galocher Keith Leonard (bio) The pepper-hint in the arugula.The vinegar pinchin the homemade dressing.The sweet potatowith its puck of butterlighting up our lips.Dinner is the only timewhen what’s going onin your mouth is alsogoing on in my mouth.It’s dinner and it’s kissing.Kissing as the French do.But the French don’t call it“French

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Homage to Richmond Barthé, and: Night Walk, and: After A Year Sober, and: Homage to Lyle Ashton Harris, and: To Sleep, and: The Age of Pleasure Derrick Austin (bio) Homage to Richmond Barthé If Barthé’s Boy with a Flutehas completed his performance,eyes rising to meet the eyes of the one who listenedseated in a flowering grove,then, perhaps

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Anachronisms Olivia Nathan (bio) 1 The night before her history test, T’s legs turned into lightbulbs. Hoot, the family Pomeranian, had been sitting beneath her desk, and T accidentally kicked him as she crossed her legs. In a show of defiance, he left her room and trotted downstairs. T didn’t notice. She forgot the new purplish pimple

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Gray Morning, and: Wind, and: Against Michael McGriff (bio) Gray Morning We’ve come to think of life hereas one elongating seasonmarked with a tap-and-die sky,a fistful of birds tossedagainst the rag light.My son asks the unanswerablequestions. Each query linksto the next, coal cars pulledtoward the lung-dark trellishis pain builds into

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: First Wife Madeline Cash (bio) Bud took four Seconal, masturbated into a tea towel, and decided to drive the Subaru into the sea. The passenger seat was piled with empty take-out containers. Looking over the discarded items, Bud felt like one himself. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the rearview mirror, the face of a man who hadn’t

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Soundings Rachel Rinehart (bio) Suddenly, it is nightand the technicianis holding not a wandbut her leather marksand plummet. Still, we see only static,only mist roilingover the horizon,where maybe you are a soft light in shadows.Row closer, my child,let me kiss the slip of you,your little body unmadein its making. Let me put my lipsto

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Good Grief: On The 2023 Booker Prize Ryan Chapman (bio) A week after the 2022 Booker Prize award ceremony, Rishi Sunak became the first British Indian to be appointed Prime Minister. He was the third PM in as many months. This milestone received a shrugged acknowledgement from my Sri Lankan uncles back in Minnesota, whose enthusiasm for

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: At Tangled Rob Colgate (bio) We are about to host our first in-person event at the galleryin three years. Sam, Sachin, and I spend two hours tryingthe owl-shaped camera that will track whoever is the speakerand spotlight them on the synchronous livestream event.Rumi and Jessie are over in the corner of the office figuring outwhat food

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Nowhere Spaces Holly Goddard Jones (bio) Over COVID lockdown, my kids and I got into the habit of watching fantasy cartoons each night before bed. One of our favorites was Hilda, a Netflix series inspired by an also-excellent graphic novel series by Luke Pearson. There’s a lot to love about Hilda, which tells the story of the titular character

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Contributors Alexandra Burack is the author of On the Verge (Plinth Books). She was founding editor of Lumina and Invert and currently serves as a poetry reader for the Los Angeles Review. She is the recipient of grants from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts as well as from the Ludwig Vogelstein and Haymarket Foundations. She teaches

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Two Poems Maria Zoccola (bio) helen of troy folds laundry in a dim room i don't know if you have ever started growingaway from yourself. a ribbed shuck peeled down,inch by inch, from the gold. shadows on the dirt:corn bending toward the harvester, leaning forward in relief. [End Page 597] helen of troy cranks the volume on "like a prayer"

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: The Keeper and the Tether Genevieve Plunkett (bio) Mom says we moved here because the schools are better, but we know that it's really because Dad fell in love with Allie and Mom can't stand that. She tells me and Sis our new school's director was raised a Quaker, like that will make us understand what all the hype is about, but we are

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Demarcation Alexandra Burack (bio) Third grade, beside the water fountain.A boy kissed mefor the first time, then spat uglygirls smell like old sandwiches.Lucky to have learnedthat certain slant of love,the metal scent of doing without. High school graduation, basement couch.A girl kissed mefor the first time, then exhaledme like the spittled

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Divided Pamela Royston Macfie (bio) 1 I remember nothing of the actual moment in which the horse and I fell to earth. Everything of the taste of blood, the crack of breaking bones, the groaning of a horse in pain, the smell of dust and lather. I couldn't move; neither could the thoroughbred. Later, I was told that he had struck the top

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Two Poems Shane McCrae (bio) Penelope and The Watching Fire She burned the loom eachNight, for heat. But eachMorning it returned Whole, and draped with aRestless blue fabricA wave's skeleton The first few morningsIt appeared, she wasSurprised by the wave She had publiclyVowed she would not lay [End Page 669] Eyes upon the sea Until her

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Bird of Paradise Shannon Sanders (bio) Evening fell and up came the automated glow of the citronella torches. Cassandra had noticed them as she first stepped into her boss's backyard, a dozen earthen obelisks discreetly lining the patio and the outer reaches of the lawn, and registered them as a particularly un-Jon-like aspect of his Takoma

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Two Poems Jameson Fitzpatrick (bio) Chorine I'm writing you from the head of a pin, to mark it.I think I'm the only one dancing up here.That I may pass a moment longer as a naïf.Elsewhere the angels I am sing:What does the pin pierce, and why?A map; somewhere someone will want to remember she's been.A dress; a new hem.A leg; by accident

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Guillotine Michelle Hart (bio) When Elle was twelve, her father purchased a private guided tour of the Musée d'Orsay for the two of them. He had just gotten divorced from Elle's mother, who had announced she would use the settlement to travel around Europe. Elle's father, however, wanted to win and whisked Elle away to France first. Elle

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: At the Evening Cotillions, 1964 William Logan (bio) Ah, my radical friend. Later,it was still the sixties,the soi-disant and distant sixties.The long-haired sixties, where every pair of shoes was a protest.I stole my parents' half-wrecked Mercedesto visit, sticking the long hours northto Springfield. I spent the weekend alone, watching

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: The Frame and the Perforations Mairead Small Staid (bio) How things seem to seem is not enough. We must somehow discover how things really seem! —Bertrand Russell Well, in the first place, what things? ________ At the Minneapolis Institute of Art, I stand before Georgia O'Keeffe's Pedernal—From the Ranch #1. "Look up pedernal," I write

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Refrain Carl Phillips (bio) My fortress has many windows; from this one,I can tell the tide's going out, I can see the small, purplish flowers,further up from the water, that you never stopped calling sea-thistle, though that's still not right. The ring of aspensthat surround my fortress, that of course know nothing of east orwest or love

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: In Praise of Panic Stephanie Danler (bio) During graduate school, one of my professors periodically fell asleep at his desk. He also took calls mid-lecture and excused himself to the hallway to have conversations with his fiancée about their upcoming travel. He was annoyed when a student wanted to talk about racism in Absalom, Absalom

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Index Volume CXXXI, 2023 FICTION Abugov, Josie Daisy the Whale 408 Ball, Bethany The Harmonica 367 Candela, María José Dark Day 507 Chao, Grace The Year I Became My Mother 277 Conklin, Lydia On the Sound 23 Hart, Michelle Guillotine 695 Karim, Sheba Goodbye, Obama 117 Marshall, Nick These Days 445 Meyer, Lily Golden Boy 219 Minot, Susan

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Contributors Josie Abugov writes fiction and nonfiction. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she graduated from Harvard in 2023. María José Candela was born and raised in Colombia. Selected as the winner of the 2020 Indiana Review Fiction Prize, her fiction has also appeared in the Kenyon Review. Her nonfiction has been published in Roxane

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Another Theory about Love Mag Gabbert (bio) Falling asleep with the wasp stillinside of this window. One of us is hungry.One of us has given up. [End Page 407] Mag Gabbert Mag Gabbert is the author of SEX DEPRESSION ANIMALS(Mad Creek Books 2023), the chapbook The Breakup, and Minml Poems(Cooper Dillon Books 2020). She is the recipient

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Daisy the Whale Josie Abugov (bio) One morning when I was ten years old, on the second day of summer in 1938, I looked out my window and saw a dead whale lying in our backyard. I already knew her as Daisy, and I could smell her all the way from my bedroom on the second floor. I ran down the stairs and into the yard, where Dad stood in

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Two Poems Stefania Gomez (bio) Stitchwork Where did the fabrics come from? Peonieson a clover wash, found at the cluttered estateof a dead man who'd dealt in silver. Tangerine feltbought with a woman who'd offered me her life.Nothing. Nowhere. I press together the facesof the scraps, align edges to sew the seam that,if done correctly,

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: These Days Nick Marshall (bio) The invitation arrives by text, lighting up a group chat that has lain quiet for two years now. A link to an Airbnb wish list of cheap houses in Georgia, near lakes. End of February/early March? Darius sends. Let me know what you think. Let's vibe. Like a magician, he conjures us. We had graduated or failed

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Three Poems Noel Yu-Jen (bio) A Midwife is Forbidden from Entering the Temple Kaohsiung, 1945 after Paul Tran If there is too much blood on my hands just say it. If you hate my touching what cannot be touchedcould only permit me to touch not you not even warcould open the thighs I have opened the wet edensI have unearthed then sewed up

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Two Poems James Davis (bio) Focus on the Family, 1996 1 The family was a scatterplotthrough which I drew a trending linethat pointed toward an originthat I called God. But it was notan unambiguous dataset.What the hell was a "third cousin"?I'd met one at that year's reunion.We'd watched the Olympics and got wetscoring each other's cannonballsinto

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Homeward Huger Foote (bio) Something happens every time I return to Memphis. It begins with a feeling in my bones as I am packing and heading out the door, taking those first steps south, then comes a pleasant jolt as I board the plane and find myself surrounded again by the music of southern voices. The transition is more subtle if I

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Hamsters Robert Travieso (bio) The dental hygienist was blasting tartar from my gums, exploring my mouth with a long silver tool that shot powerful darts of water into the space between my teeth, and shouting out numbers to her assistant—3.7! 2.1!—that I didn't think had anything to do with me. There were three people in the room, or four

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Night Instruction Huan He (bio) A waswerian: for my eighth-grade Language Arts teacher, Mrs. Cunningham, who made us memorize all the helping verbs in the English language As the evening janitor turns off the last corridor light, the elementary desks glow from the lamppost, dusk is a mirror of childhood, showing your face as you are to

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Dark Day María José Candela (bio) The he first morning Aurora woke at the hospital, she noticed the tree. She had been operated on the day before. The surgery had gone fine so far as she could tell. She no longer had a uterus. Her chances of conceiving before the surgery had already been slim, but now they were nonexistent. The surgery

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Birdbath Annabel Graham (bio) The class is a Scene Study. Method technique. Tuesday evenings; seven to eleven officially, though I never once leave before midnight. The studio sits on a vague blank eastern stretch of Melrose, walking distance from the Paramount lot. It takes me an hour to drive there from our canyon—the PCH to the 10 and

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: A Film by Hong Sang-Soo Daryl Qilin Yam (bio) 1. Now, Then "Can you believe it?" said Hongsik's aunt. "It's baekro, soon." They were the only people in the restaurant that September evening. It was a miracle they found it, Caleb and Hongsik, as they walked down the length of Changdeokgung-gil, bordered on the right by the bricked walls

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Finishing the Hole:On the Failure of the Novel Metaphor Jess Walter (bio) "I'm not systematic, I'm not a critic or a theorist, which means I look for solutions in my work as problems arise." —Argentine writer and teacher Julio Cortázar "It's a lot easier knowing you can't do something than knowing you shouldn't." —American golfer and train

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reader, I Corey Van Landingham (bio) had grown skeptical of line. Of stern procession down a page's blue rule. Malmaison's perfumed rows the Empress marched down—Rosa Centifolia, Rosa Lucida—while her husband's flotilla lapped toward Trafalgar. Of the jealous descent. I had cast off such impossible realms—near Diamond Head, on an unseasonably

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Golden Boy Lily Meyer (bio) The tomato sat in a bowl of its own on the counter. "Look at him," my dad crowed. "Golden Boy." Golden Boy was fat and streaky, with rich orange veins running down his red sides. His stem gave off the faint, bitter smell of sun-cooked dirt. He had no wormholes, no soft spots, not one pucker or bruise. The chipmunks

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: The Murmur of Everything Moving Maureen Stanton (bio) On a quiet Saturday afternoon in May, while Steve napped on the couch and I sat in the La-Z-Boy watching television, I heard a tinny knock on our screen door. Joey, Steve's childhood friend, stood on our veranda. "Hey, Joe," I said, and welcomed him in. I'd met Joey two years earlier

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Pantoum With Ecclesiastes Sarah Ghazal Ali (bio) There is no godsave him. All will be effacedsave his face. In my mind'sprivate eye: sockets bright with black. For him, I effaceeach image I've hungered for. Condemnedto the public eye, I reach into my own sockets.The eye never has enough of seeing. Each image I've eatenmeaningless, meaningless

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: The Year I Became My Mother Grace Chao (bio) On the day I turned twenty-five, I decided I would give my mother the life she never had. And by that I mean I planned to live the life she was never able to live. It was the seventh of September, 2018, and I was going to be my mother. She had been dead for one-and-a-half years. I would give

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Lying in Wait Alexander Maksik (bio) You didn't arrive the way I'd imagined: inching your way, slow and steady. Instead, there was the top of your head and then the rest of you in a burst, unfolding like an acrobat. I asked if I could hold you. "She's your kid," our dry-witted doctor said, which I thought was very funny, until you were

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: A Painting for the Temple Justin Taylor (bio) Spencer Silver could scarcely believe his eyes. While whole swaths of Soho, the Village, and even Chinatown had been razed and replaced—or his impression was that they had been—here on East Eighty-Sixth and Lexington, where the wild light of the January day had so dazzled him upon emergence

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Homage to a Picture Bride Garrett Hongo (bio) When years were long with labor in the sugarfields,I sought a wife, at last, choosing her from a photograph.She was but fifteen, a shy child of a bridewrapped in faded kimono, as I likewise was wrapped in wind,a man of thirty, weathered by work in the green seasof cane, my savings finally enough

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Crown Shyness A. E. Stallings (bio) The ancient epics do not overlap.Hector dies. Achilles is a ghost.The wooden horse is backstory at most,Or hasn't happened yet. A witch's trapTurns men to swine. A living river burns.A dog lies pining on a heap of dung.A woman waits, and is no longer young.A ransom's paid. A wanderer returns. So great

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Kind Words Spoken in Welcome:The Translations of Seamus Heaney Spencer Hupp (bio) Translation is famously difficult. Or rather, its difficulty is famous and means a great deal of the talk on translation occurs in the negative, in what translations—and translators—can't do; their hesitant authority, their deference to the source material

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: The Harmonica Bethany Ball (bio) I shucked off my coat and hung it on a hook beside the dryers. They rumbled with bright electric heat. The YMCA's service desk was toward the back of the building, and it was the entrance through which the members entered the fitness area and the pool. I loved shifts back there. The service desk was like

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Generative Revision:Beyond the Zero-Sum Game Monica Youn (bio) I started off thinking about this essay's topic as a way of dealing with writer's block. I could be wrong, but in my subjective experience, poets complain about being blocked more than artists in any other discipline or genre. And one reason for that may be that, at least in

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Contributors Xavier Navarro Aquino is the author of the novel Velorio. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, he currently teaches in the MFA program at the University of Notre Dame. Jos Charles is author of the poetry collections a Year & other poems (Milkweed Editions 2022), feeld, a Pulitzer-finalist and winner of the 2017 National Poetry

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: 13 Ways of Looking at a Magpie Monica Youn (bio) One for sorrow,Two for joy,Three for a girl,Four for a boy,Five for silver,Six for gold,Seven for a secret never to be told.Eight for a wish,Nine for a kiss,Ten a surprise you should be careful not to miss.Eleven for health,Twelve for wealth,Thirteen beware it’s the devil himself. 1 “Mag”

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Experience Manager Susan Minot (bio) It is windy the afternoon you arrive and the white caps off the beach do not look as if one will be able to swim there. You are handed large green coconuts with bamboo straws sticking out of them. You have come from a city teeming with the roller-coaster worry of two years in a pandemic. You would not

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: On The Sound Lydia Conklin (bio) The lobsters were disgustingly large, their meat—like the rubber gaskets from espresso machines—packed into candy-red shells. Nick chewed as best he could, rocking the flesh between his molars until it was soft enough to navigate his throat without suffocating him. Ace, the hostess with white-blond hair

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Peace Be Still Roger Reeves (bio) Hush. You could be whipped to death for being out here among the trees, on your knees on the banks of a stream, holding the hands of other enslaved folks and praying at the edge of a plantation, praying to a possibly unsanctioned, non-Christian god, worshiping life as you saw fit, without having to suffer