Mud Season ReviewOde to Cidering From trees unpicked, un-lovely, un-named fruitfallen in October’s bluster, not Winesap,not Northern Spy, but yellow-skinned, blemish more than flesh. Flung on the tarp.Everything sticky. Gathered into buckets,even the wasps. Fruit, worms and all, decanted into the wooden press that takesthe strength of two to work—you smashthe tubful with a wooden club. I […]
Mayapple We step into the forest even though we know it is going to storm. Crunch of trail gravel beneath our shoes. In my life there are so few people who make me feel real. Not real like tangible but real like always and infinite. You tell me about all the plants of the forest. […]
Again It was amazing and amazing and again amazingthat it was morning again, the lovers turning overin their beds and finding each otheragain here again you again still goodmorning and even when they let themselves slipinto the ordinary shaking thecoffee grounds into the compost packingthe lunch finding the right shoes heading outinto the outside day […]
When My Father Voice Failed Us All I sat the night shift with my daughterin the hospital as she made the journeyfrom her body to her new home.Thirty-nine years too brief a tenancy.I listened to her breath come and go,an old woman sweeping a stone floor,an insistent whisper and I whispered, too,like, I hope, a […]
Discard Last night I dreamt of messy tabletops which is what I woke to this morning: papers pile on every surface, statements, tax forms, receipts overflow a box in the corner near the tangle of computer wire, and Christmas cards I should have answered and an old bill for four bucks I’ve long ignored. Where […]
Bedtime Routine Our son scans a subtly inappropriate comic. I leaf through my copy of pre-divorce Sharon Olds for the millionth time. With one hand, my husband reads about hairdos to our daughter and, with the other, reaches inside my legs. A few hours earlier, he announced he had to traverse a landmass to go […]
Wolf Who Is Not A Wolf Plays Board Games and does not kill the other does gathered about the wide lightning forked trunk laid down by father air. The wolf looted the games from town, rooting through throwaways, thrifting from the free pile at the library bins, so the games are fair careworn and mixed […]
Patient Health Questionnaire – 9 1. Little interest or pleasure in doing things? Have you ever been caught in a sudden rainstorm where you’ve had to run from doorway to doorway to get home and you walk in the house with your shoulders soaked, feeling something close to joy? Am I supposed to answer these […]
Still Life with a Lemon You wear a striped shirt,stare into the camera, lips straight,gaze hard. The room dark,filled with paintings.A cigarette hangs from your hand.You see a horse in a palm tree,a green parrot in a salad.Fire in a tulip.You soak a brush in turpentine,swirl it until red paint comes off. You don’t lie […]
Button Box On my mother’s round-rim wooden button box,is a painted scene – tan fields, a red barn,three faded, black-eared sheep bowingin a chipped green pasture. Dutch? I wonder. Inside, there are flat, four-eyed, two-eyed, back-eyed,black, blue, square, satin, toggle buttons,some in brass, silver, glass, some with the threadfrayed and hanging like an afterthought. Begot […]
William This Friday afternoonaround 5:30,the postal clerkwill pick up his sonfrom baseball practiceand stop by the ABC storeon the way home. As his son waitsin the backseatof his Honda Civic,a homeless manwith a scraggly beard,and long hair beneathan unzipped sleeping bag,will walk towards himfrom the bus stop. As he approaches,with a brown bagclinched in his […]
To Mr. Paul Goodman, concerning his review of my novel Another Country, which he called mediocre: I’m writing here, slight negro-and don’t get any ideas about this- accent intact, a few words in response to your recent critique of my lack of world-building. Look, Paul. You said it yourself. There are two things I am […]
The Hatchling by Sarah Marquez At my feet. Blocking the way in and out. Blind-head twisted back. Skin-wings outstretched in a mockery of flight. Dead. I step over. I wonder why this doorstep, why today, and who pushed it from the nest, or if it sensed death […]
Road Trip to Duke by Bill Glose Not once on the long trip down do we mention our motive, the manila-enveloped passenger in back, the magnetically-resonanced images and sheaf of medical assessments. We play games instead, racing through alphabets, cataloguing state slogans, slug-bugging a shoulder now and then. A Virginia sign proclaims This county invented […]
Editor’s Statement: Tyx deftly opens the poem in media res and builds a scene in few words. Not only do the details of the rain, plastic fork, and spicy eggplant snare the senses, the poem is filled with echoes of hard c throughout: car/congealed/cold curry/confluence/coconut. Ultimately, the brevity of language creates emotional expansion as we […]
Author’s Statement: “Effigy” is partially inspired by the annual burning of Zozobra, a 50-foot effigy representing all that is negative. My mother passed recently, and the concept of this larger-than-life woman’s absence towers over me similarly. “Effigy” explores the enormity of her cremation, as well as the magnitude – and spectacle – of loss and […]
Editor’s Statement: Dugas leads us into a dreamscape where the world of plague and bad news is supplanted by color, art and café comforts. Yes, please! This poem is medicine for the isolated desperation settling in, and the declaration, “I want nothing but to finish loving you…get my reds all over you” had me rattling […]
Ever wonder how journal editors make decisions about work to feature? The Take gives you a glimpse behind the scenes at Mud Season Review. Here, we feature one single poem or flash fiction piece that caught the attention of the editorial team, apart from the signature poetry portfolio or fiction piece in our bi-monthly issues. […]
Ever wonder how journal editors make decisions about work to feature? The Take gives you a glimpse behind the scenes at Mud Season Review. Here, we feature one single poem or flash fiction piece that caught the attention of the editorial team, apart from the signature poetry portfolio or fiction piece in our bi-monthly issues. […]
Ever wonder how journal editors make decisions about work to feature? The Take gives you a glimpse behind the scenes at Mud Season Review. Here, we feature one single poem or flash fiction piece that caught the attention of the editorial team, apart from the signature poetry portfolio or fiction piece in our bi-monthly issues. […]
Ever wonder how journal editors make decisions about work to feature? The Take gives you a glimpse behind the scenes at Mud Season Review. Here, we feature one single poem or flash fiction piece that caught the attention of the editorial team, apart from the signature poetry portfolio or fiction piece in our bi-monthly issues. […]
Ever wonder how journal editors make decisions about work to feature? The Take gives you a glimpse behind the scenes at Mud Season Review. Here, we feature one single poem or flash fiction piece that caught the attention of the editorial team, apart from the signature poetry portfolio or fiction piece in our bi-monthly issues. […]
Ever wonder how journal editors make decisions about work to feature? The Take gives you a glimpse behind the scenes at Mud Season Review. Here, we feature one single poem or flash fiction piece that caught the attention of the editorial team, apart from the signature poetry portfolio or fiction piece in our bi-monthly issues. […]
Carley Besl For Now On the sun, I weigh 27 times my earth-weight.27 is older than I am now, olderthan your mother when you were born.And though my womb has only yielded red,didn’t you bring me here to nurse you through grief?Two weeks from now is a year since her death.Didn’t you take me, even […]
Anastasia Stelse The Tree of Many Fruits With the proper technique plumsmay be grafted with apricots, peaches,nectarines—any stone-heavyfruit. The ripening flesh of forty varieties scents delirium. Stepone: Find a stock tree that weatherswell. Step two: Wound it. Step three:Tape new buds in the cut— it will strengthen. This is perfectlynatural. See Egyptians, hieroglyphics, subsettrees. We’re […]