Not Required for Class

July 2024 | nonfiction

I will miss school, not because of the parties, but because it’s a Thursday morning in this freezing lecture hall with a big bag of balls, in a hundred different colors, and we’re grabbing a bunch of them, and putting them back, which is all fine and dandy but what’s the chance—think about it—that you draw exactly a hundred balls, and they’re exactly a hundred different colors, which is to say that everything—just everything—about the balls are different, and it’s definitely not required for class, but after frantic scribbling, he says, the probability is nine-point-three-times-ten—and then he runs out of space, so he squiggles, alludes in the last bit off to the side—to-the-power-of–minus-forty-three, which is—which is!—hands flailing for meaning now, scrambling up right beside me—the chance that—and here he’s out in a sprint to the wall—the chance that if I continue running—and we all want him to—I’ll come out on the other side. And that’s all, he says nonchalantly, not required for class, but I’m already on the other side of the wall and damn if it isn’t magical, those colors.

 

Jonah Sheen Tan

Jonah Sheen Tan is a recent Columbia University graduate from Singapore who lives in Hong Kong. His writing has appeared in X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine and Pithead Chapel, where it was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Salon

July 2024 | poetry

Both of us were small, though she,

compliant, soft as white bread,

spent two years in Beginner Swim

for fear of ducking under water.

I’d bike downhill past her house,

where she nestled among four sisters

and brothers, my hands raised

from the handlebars, showing off.

That summer, I sheared Sharon’s

dishwater blond hair at her house,

though outside, away from May,

her harried mother who’d hustle

in seconds from basement to back

yard clothesline, from kitchen to

car port. My plan: to make Sharon’s

bowl cut chic, sleek.

 

Feeling professional, mature,

I used a spray bottle for styling,

finished with children’s scissors.

I still see Sharon seated on a chair

in her driveway, me standing

above her, both hidden behind

her father’s black Ford truck,

beige tufts sprouting from her head

like clumps of damp hamster fur.

I cried, though we both knew Sharon

would be fine. I was confined to

our house and yard, punished behind

an invisible fence, watched May fly

by in her station wagon, her kids waving

popsicle-sticky hands out the windows,

returning from the community pool.

It was not just my aloneness, my shame.

I felt my plans for summer, plans for

a brave, expansive life, each day

cut shorter.

 

VA Smith

VA Smith’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in dozens of literary journals and anthologies, among them: Southern Review, Calyx, Crab Creek Review, West Trade Review, and Quartet. Kelsay Books published her first and second poetry collections, Biking Through the Stone Age, 2022, and American Daughters 2023. Her manuscript, Adaptations, is slated for publication in 2025. Her poetry has been nominated several times for Pushcart Prizes. A former Liberal Arts Excellence in Teaching Faculty member at Penn State University, she is currently a staff member at River Heron Review, writing, practicing yoga, and home chefing. Learn more about Virginia’s work at vasmithpoetry.com, or on Instagram and YouTube @vasmithpoetry.

Michael C. Roberts

July 2024 | visual art

Irish fishing boat in dry dock

 

Michael C. Roberts

Michael C. Roberts is a licensed clinical psychologist who has published professional and scientific articles, chapters, and books. Seeking to fulfill his creative side, he values things and scenes that are overlooked or backdrops to everyday life. His photographs have appeared on journal covers and in literary publications. He often uses cheap plastic cameras, such as the Diana, Holga, and La Sardinia for making photographs on film, but also resorts to digital at times. A photographic book on Amazon is Imaging the World with Plastic Cameras: Diana and Holga.

mnemonixART

July 2024 | visual art

Cycles in black

Black and white

 

mnemonixART

Velibor Baco, also known as mnemonixART, is an artist from Austria who works in various mediums.

We Always Break Up Near Water

July 2024 | fiction

  1. We sit on the banks of the river on the last day of summer. The drought has left only a trickle down the center of the dry river bed, so there is no sound of water to distract us from the words hanging between us. Nothing will be final until one of us walks away.
  2. We arrive at a pool party hosted by your coworker. After starving myself to fit into a bikini, I need only three watery cocktails to trip and fall into the pool. You leave, embarrassed, and your boss has to drive me home.
  3. We stand near the confluence of two rivers in the middle of the country as we roadtrip from one coast to the other. Silence for miles, followed by sharp words stabbing each other until we’re hollowed out. The next day we’re overly polite, as if we just met.
  4. We keep returning to each other, a bit out of love, but mostly out of fear. We’re more miserable apart than we are together, we tell ourselves, holding space until someone better comes along.
  5. We end for good standing next to the ocean. Giving up like a bloody boxer who can’t take another round. The tears you try to hide taste like the sea as I kiss you goodbye.

 

Jen McConnell

Jen McConnell has published prose and poetry in more than forty literary magazines, and her work has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Her current work can be found in Does it Have Pockets?, Bridge Eight, and the tiny journal. Her first story collection, “Welcome, Anybody,” was published in 2012. Learn more at jenmcconnell.com.