Scott Penney

April 2026 | poetry

Polynomial

Lines as points that flow

from the first to last,

planes as groups of lines

that define a surface,

 

some rippling surface

a topographic map

defined by rippling lines

also to mean mountains

 

but they move too fast

to define a moving figure

a human figure computed

in its sudden contortions

on a flatscreen of colors

 

limbs that part from bodies

or melt back into the torso

from which they came

or part like distended ribs–

 

it’s all just lines distorted,

flowing points composing lines,

points that move on a plane

crossing boundaries of others

 

nota bene the wrestling harlequins

as they melt into another

in the prize ring.

 

Scott Penney

Recent publications have been in Artful Dodge, basalt, Faultline, Fugue, Chiron Review, and other magazines. He has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony and the Vermont Studio Center. Currently, he lives in Chelsea, Vermont.

Matt Leibel

April 2026 | fiction

How to Go Through the Drive-Thru Car Wash Without Your Car

Leave it back home in the driveway: this is your chance to be purified. Approach the drive-thru entrance on foot, like it’s a cathedral of cleanliness. Shift your body into neutral, and get ready for the ride of your life. As you are splashed and soaped and buffed and waxed, exorcise all the dirt that has accumulated in your bones, your skin, your fingernails, your toes. Clean every last surface of your most desirous thoughts: your mind should shine pristinely, all dreams of chocolate cake or tight-sweatered strangers or public figures you wish to strangle safely sequestered in a supply closet at the back of your brain, a place you can’t access without a skeleton key, or two-factor authentication. Ever since you were young, you’ve dreamed of this moment. Ever since you were strapped in the back seat while your mother—harried, hurried—ran your red Volvo wagon through its glow-up shower after retrieving you up from elementary school. You remember watching the show through the cranked-up window, the mops of rubber hair that slopped wet all over the car’s body calming you somehow. Becoming a vehicle wash voyeur also made you think of your excursions to Lion Country Safari, the sadness of that drive-thru zoo; what, you wondered, did these regal but strangely emaciated beasts make of your huge-wheeled and armored animal as it slowly idled through their artificial, exurban habitat? Now, you’re a grown-ass adult pretending to be a Porsche, and paying $19.95 plus tax for this strangest of baptisms—or at least you’re test-driving the idea as reverie. Hand an extra fiver to the guys who finish hand-drying you, and thank them for their efforts. Well: do you feel cleansed? Are you ready to face the horrors and pleasures of this blemished world with fresh-faced and sudsy energy? Or do you desperately want to get dirty again—to go roll around in a puddle of mud somewhere, like the filthy, sinful creature you are?

 

Matt Leibel

Matt Leibel’s short fiction has appeared in Post Road, Electric Literature, Portland Review, The Normal School, Quarterly West, Socrates on the Beach, Aquifer: The Florida Review Online, matchbook, and Wigleaf. His work has also been previously anthologized in Best Small Fictions 2024, Best Microfiction 2025, and Best Microfiction 2026. Find him online at mattleibel.com.

Minjae Kim

April 2026 | visual art

Chromatic Flow 2

 

Minjae Kim

He is a Year 11 student at Saint Paul Educational Institutions in Korea who enjoys capturing everyday moments through a cinematic lens. His work often focuses on ordinary landscapes and daily scenes, transforming them into visually atmospheric images. Beyond photography, he is interested in storytelling and visual narrative processes. He explores how images and moving visuals can convey mood and subtle narratives rather than direct explanations. He has a strong interest in photography, particularly landscape and everyday-life photography, as well as cinematic-style graphic video production. When creating visual work, he tends to gravitate toward abstract expressions rather than strictly representational forms, seeking to evoke emotions and interpretations rather than present literal subjects.