Issue Fifty-Four | SmokeLong Quarterly
i utide | SmokeLong Quarterly
A Smooth, Shallow Cut | SmokeLong Quarterly
Gravity, Reduced | SmokeLong Quarterly
The Photo | SmokeLong Quarterly
It must have been 9th grade for our history class was cancelled again, an indeterminate kind of “cancel” because it was Perestroika in 1989 in the USSR and our history textbooks were suddenly out of date. via Pocket
Government-issued Bunnies | SmokeLong Quarterly
The rabbits are government-issued. Shambolic bunnies. Bunnies with smeary eyes, with a faintly sulfurous smell about them. Bunnies splotched with white fur on brown. Bunnies full of gumption munch through buckets of grass and weeds. Don’t anthropomo…
What I Have Coming To Me | SmokeLong Quarterly
My lips are so bitten up it’s like my mouth just chewed its way out of my face. I think my mother is about to tell me about the divorce between her and my father. Guess my age, with my parents getting divorced. You’re wrong, add ten years. via Pocket
The Other Thing – THE AIRGONAUT
by Michelle Geoga Penelope was already thinking having some babies would make her feel better then she found one at the Kmart, a sleepy one with long dark lashes, tiny fist balls clen…
Memento Arbori – THE AIRGONAUT
by Nina Sudhakar Into a shallow river, the holy tributary, we poured all of our ashes. Hard of bone and soft of soul: the remnants of our ancestors. The sandbar baked in the sun until…
Pentecost – THE AIRGONAUT
by Michael Díaz Feito A frondy dog dictated to the things how to take my portrait (and Cnut, drooling sugar, videoed it): “Clip wool turf, mower. Peel then white mold, knife. Gravel t…
Fractals – THE AIRGONAUT
by Phoebe Reeves-Murray He became aware of colors swirling across the sky in front of him: purple, pink, green, yellow. He tried to touch them, but the curve of the sky bowed away lik…
Sole Survivor – THE AIRGONAUT
by Kyle Hemmings Shortly before my girlfriend died, she asked me to take care of her pet dinosaur. It was the kind that flew–a Confuciusornis. For most of the time that we had …
The Flowering Tree – THE AIRGONAUT
by Brooke Reynolds Mary’s mother tells Mary to cut down her flowering tree, for it is barren and refuses to bear fruit. Mary tells her mother it is a flowering tree, with other purpos…
The Boxes – THE AIRGONAUT
by Sylvia Schwartz A small girl is riding her bike back and forth, trapped in a long, rectangular enclosed box. She does not see that she is confined; her eyes are cast down at her fe…
The First and the Last – THE AIRGONAUT
by GJ Hart Done with remorseful tick and defiant tock and applauding foreheads and wonted theorems behind tremoring hands on grey-areas and Neptune’s one true pyramid, Denholme …
Burying Aab – THE AIRGONAUT
by Erin Jamieson Though our family lives in Ulaanbaatar, we knew we couldn’t bury Aab there. Not under the smoky hue that clogged the city skyline. Not beyond the ashy streets, the sa…
Covalence – THE AIRGONAUT
by Gay Degani Jennifer, “Jen,” as she preferred to be called, used to meet her neighbor, Howard, in Rocketship Park. They made a game of it. She would be in her jogging clothes, her f…
Cocoon – THE AIRGONAUT
by J. Bradley I don’t know why my boys have never asked me where my old body went when I became what I am now. It’s like they expected this to happen, all my wrongs and sins poisoning…
A Case Study of a Changing Home – THE AIRGONAUT
by Omer Friedlander My parents had bought the first model of the Changing Home at a reduced price, when it was only an experiment. Our experience was used as a case study, to test it …
Something in French – THE AIRGONAUT
by Matthew Moffett If Sophie Brown were an artist, she’d sculpt her own body in clay, in various poses, life-sized and writhing in torment. Then, she’d exhibit the figures…
Snake Head Cul-de-sac – THE AIRGONAUT
by Lisa Favicchia It had to be hot, because otherwise the snake head would not have been crispy like bacon on the outside, would not have retained its sheen long enough to be conceiva…
Static – THE AIRGONAUT
by Timothy Day Claire was in the process of cleaning out her closet when she found the box, stuffed into the corner and conspicuously unlabeled, traces of soot lining its edges. She o…
Parable of the Skate Park – THE AIRGONAUT
by Merridawn Duckler I wake at my namesake. Today is the day. Gold air, baby blue clouds. Sun on the rim like a blood line across the knuckle. I feel the board falling into the empty …
The Little Pieces That Form the Mural – THE AIRGONAUT
by Howie Good The Drowned and the Saved Everyone wants to see the trapeze guy fall and the lion trainer killed. Then we can forget our own problems. What have we come to? Oh, a moving…
Excerpts – THE AIRGONAUT
by Erick Sáenz “Jim!” Echo through empty space. “Don’t worry about me, I’m okay.” That familiar smile. And then a flash. Sense of awareness. Sunlight peeking through blinds. Jim…
These Are the Rules of Our Canopy Shyness and Life – THE AIRGONAUT
by Santino Prinzi These Are the Rules of Our Canopy Shyness and Life When my parents were saplings, my grandparents taught them the rules of canopy shyness: Do not let your lea…
A Day for Watching Birds – THE AIRGONAUT
by Anna Vangala Jones Her shoes aren’t ones she chose to walk in, but they’re the shoes she’s been given. They’re brown and scuffed and the laces have that frayed, gray, been in too m…
The Future Doesn’t Have A Dog In This Fight – THE AIRGONAUT
by Mary Lynn Reed He stands on the porch, smoking his last cigarette again. His hands are too smooth and his shoulders slouch. He tries to keep the smoke blowing in the right directio…
a reason for the season – THE AIRGONAUT
by suiyi tang when i was finally permitted to see my mother, moments after her surgery, she turned me away and asked for my father. his presence centered her in a way that mine did no…
Whistle on the wind, my lad – THE AIRGONAUT
by Sandra Arnold From the outside, apart from the moth-eaten taxidermy and ferret skulls in the window, The Waiting Room in Whistler’s Lane looks like your average junk shop. The insi…