Issue #62

Our common humanity makes visible our wood nymphs and isolations, a metamorphosis of the self into bone. Issue #62 explores our collective experience of personhood and time, how perspectives can change while parts stay the same, much like a complex tree with roots, cast with the shadow of a fox at dawn.

This issue’s poetry portfolio by Jaye Nasir proves once and for all that the folklore of humanity rests in the glorious fields and meadows of grief and fable. “We crawl out of each other and die in birdsong, on afternoons.” We’re reminded that certain seasons can be better than others, but all seasons are.

They say that memory and past are but an illusion rooted in emotion—narratives we create to tell our stories. Deborah Thompson’s creative nonfiction essay “The Penguin Problem” shows us how humanity’s timeless relationship with pets become interwoven in our stories of future and family. “Around and around she goes, in endless loops. From an aerial view, you would see the sign of infinity.”

In Toni Trapani’s short story “Looking for Jimmy,” the viewer is thrust into the mind of an adolescent teenager with an obsession. “I expected something different – something like a large façade of marble shined to a perfect plane, cool and creamy to the touch,” they say when confronting the object of their desire: a grave. Full of vibrant details that hammer in its themes, this story is haunting.

Many faces hidden in fabric comprise a body sparkling with the moon. What we mean is, the reflective pool of our experience shimmers with hope and anxiety. Let the future shine brighter than our darkest days.

Best,

Rebecca & Ashley