April 2026 | poetry
Burn Pit
Always, our need to know.
The way a burn pit is in conversation
With its burning.
How we are ordered to breathe,
To stand and breathe
So our blood can acknowledge
What is entering the lungs.
The particulates of precious heavy metals.
Vulnerable as we are, ordered
To be more so
To perform upon command
Even when we suspect it to be lethal.
And somehow, still, our need to know.
The temptation to put the knife-tip of fire
To our tongue.
Smoke rising like the voice of a chanteuse,
The Steinway’s lacquer liquifying in the heat
Air to breath to blood.
And no one, no one
Is allowed to leave.
The singer still singing her desire,
The burn pit burning brighter.
Ken Holland
Ken Holland has been widely published in journals including Rattle, Atlanta Review, Tulane Review, and Tupelo Quarterly. His work has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. He placed first in the 2021 New Ohio Review poetry contest and was a finalist in the 2024 Concrete Wolf and the 2025 Moonstone Press chapbook contests, which Moonstone subsequently published. Also, a finalist in Bicoastal Review’s 2025 contest. More at kenhollandpoet.com
April 2026 | poetry
Cadaver
I dreamt last night that Mothra died. Three pebbles and a few rented orphans attended her wake, a modest affair. I was working. I was lurking inside a bouquet of Forget-Me-Not’s. I was fucking around inside the last coyote’s lair and I still needed a hair-cut, a blue noose, a way to stop choosing my adventures. No one picked up Mothra’s body from the good morgue. No one cared. And I was scared, so I answered the telephone. The man from the morgue said: Everyone is dead here, Henry Sugar. Your mother’s wings are getting in the way of my salad. Would you like to play Marry-Fuck-Kill? Silly me, as if I am not still beholden to how poor we were, the burnt toast, the loaves of old ghost stories. I dreamt that I scared myself awake, on the way to the death chamber, the womb reclaiming. At the morgue, Mothra smiles at me like an old flying saucer and I book us two tickets to Tokyo. We wander around the Marunouchi, and she is reminded of San Francisco. She asks: Was I a wonderful mother? and I hate that every question has an answer. Lying is a strangled yodel and Mother Mothra is easier now that she is dead. It’s a simple thing to stay silent and so I quit my mouth like an overdose and went mild. She drinks sake. We eat o-nigiri and remember Ghirardelli Square. I wish my blood could turn our quiet love to technicolor. I show her the shop where my husband and I bought the painting of the tree, the color of sour limes. She asks me if I cried when she died. I don’t remember. I do not say that I forgive her, as my tongue is only as thick as rose-beds. I touch her ashy wing and little parts of her fall into me, a telescope or hesitant quicksand. I say: I am happy, now. On the third morning, I miss my husband and take a flight home. As the jet rises over the city, I look out the window. Mothra is still on that park bench, staring with eyes that will never close, over the vast bay. I let go.
Jason Davidson
Jason Davidson is a poet, fiction writer, playwright and performer. He’s written and directed over 200 works of experimental theatre and his one-act plays have been widely published. His poetry has appeared recently or is forthcoming in Hobart, SoFloPoJo, Heavy Feather Review, HAD, Luna Luna and other journals. Jason lives on California’s Central Coast with his husband. Find him on Instagram at @jasonwriteswords or visit his site at jasonwriteswords.com.
April 2026 | nonfiction
Dreamscape
Trailing behind my partner Arnie and friend Tom, I ski toward Dreamscape lift down Déjà vu, an intermediate Park City run well within my skill set; I’m 69 with 35 years of experience under my parka although certainly not an expert. The air is afternoon crisp but my hands and toes are toasty thanks to my heated gloves and boots. I carve turn after turn after turn and hear my edges digging into the hard pack. The snow is slick. My mind wanders for a moment, a daydream maybe, and I miscalculate a turn. OHHH SHIIIIIIIT! I veer off the groomed terrain, impale my skis in a mogul, flip out of the bindings, catapult airborne, then land on my stomach and slide twenty feet down the hill. Somewhere along the way I hear a muffled crack. I let go of my ski poles, still oddly clenched in my hands, and roll over onto my back. I shake, shake, shake in shock. My right leg feels limp. Tom yells from below, “Can you get up or should I call ski patrol?” “Ski patrol,” I yell back. Pain begins to throb deep in my leg. The metallic taste of fear coats the inside of my mouth. Will my knee still bend? I don’t dare test it. I shake, shake, shake and I can’t make it stop! “Breathe,” I tell myself. “Breathe.” A panic attack will not help. I try to steel myself—such a weird expression. I think about Arnie who is likely at the lift and wondering where I am. Did she take a little tumble and have trouble getting up? Soon, the ski patrol will arrive with their tools and toboggan. I’ve watched them rescue other skiers after crashes and wipeouts and felt grateful I was upright. Now I will be their cargo, one of the fallen, wrapped in a blanket and ferried down the hill. I close my eyes and I wait, wishing, wishing, wishing this was all a dream.
Sharon Goldberg
Sharon Goldberg is a Seattle writer whose work has appeared/is forthcoming in The Gettysburg Review, The Citron Review, New Letters, The Louisville Review, Cold Mountain Review, River Teeth, Green Mountains Review, The Southern Indiana Review, The Lost Balloon, Best Small Fictions, and elsewhere. Sharon won second place in the On the Premises 2012 Humor Contest and Fiction Attic Press’s 2013 Flash in the Attic Contest. She is an avid but cautious skier and enthusiastic world traveler.
