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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Art Spring 2024 >
      • Kristina Erny Spring 2024
      • Luiza Maia Spring 2024
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      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Poetry Spring 2024 >
      • Terry Belew Spring 2024
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    • Fiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Bryan Betancur Spring 2024
      • Karen George Spring 2024
      • Raja'a Khalid Spring 2024
      • Riley Manning Spring 2024
      • Adina Polatsek Spring 2024
      • Beth Sherman Spring 2024
    • Nonfiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Liza Olson Spring 2024
  • Issue #28 Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Art Fall 2024 >
      • Eric Calloway Fall 2024
      • Matthew Fertel Fall 2024
      • JooLee Kang Fall 2024
      • Jian Kim Fall 2024
      • Robb Kunz Fall 2024
      • Sean Layh Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Poetry Fall 2024 >
      • Jodi Balas Fall 2024
      • Clayre Benzadón Fall 2024
      • Catherine Broadwall Fall 2024
      • Sara Burge Fall 2024
      • Judith Chalmer Fall 2024
      • Stephanie Choi Fall 2024
      • Sarah Jack Fall 2024
      • Jen Karetnick Fall 2024
      • Ae Hee Lee Fall 2024
      • Svetlana Litvinchuk Fall 2024
      • Mary Lou Buschi Fall 2024
      • Angie Macri Fall 2024
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      • Camille Newsom Fall 2024
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      • Diane Raptosh Fall 2024
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    • Issue #28 Fiction Fall 2024 >
      • J​oe Baumann Fall 2024
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      • Ryan Peed Fall 2024
      • Gabriella Pitts Fall 2024
      • James Sullivan Fall 2024
  • Issue #29 Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Art Spring 2025 >
      • Irina Greciuhina Spring 2025
      • Jesse Howard Spring 2025
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      • Elzbieta Zdunek Spring 2025
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    • Issue #29 Poetry Spring 2025 >
      • Deborah Bacharach Spring 2025
      • Diego Báez Spring 2025
      • Jaswinder Bolina Spring 2025
      • ​Ash Bowen Spring 2025
      • Christian J. Collier Spring 2025
      • ​Shou Jie Eng Spring 2025
      • Sara Fitzpatrick Spring 2025
      • Matthew Gilbert Spring 2025
      • Tammy C. Greenwood Spring 2025
      • Alejandra Hernández ​Spring 2025
      • Ben Kline ​Spring 2025
      • ​David Moolten Spring 2025
      • ​Tamer Mostafa Spring 2025
      • ​Rongfei Mu Spring 2025
      • Cynthia Neely Spring 2025
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2025
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    • Issue #29 Fiction Spring 2025 >
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      • JM Huscher Spring 2025
      • Qurrat ul Ain Raza Abbas Spring 2025

Sara Tracey

Anna Dreams of Heat and Light

  1940                                     
Just yesterday, I found a rabbit’s
spine in the garden. I slipped
each vertebra in my apron pocket.
 
All day, they hummed along
my hip until, at dusk, I reached in
and pulled out a string of pearls.
 
Why do you think I am lying?
Because I gave away the only thing
I had worth keeping? So be it.
 
Take this, too: once, my father
touched my cheek and told me
I looked just the same
 
as my mother when she
was a girl. I know this is true
because I dream of gravity,
 
a gentle kiss. I wake with a start,
body like a rubber band
let loose. Snap. And something
 
I almost had is gone. Snap.
And my heart trips forward, clumsy
as a kid. She is gypsy
 
dark, fingernails rimmed with black
soil. Pebbles in her mouth. A gift.
She made the first rabbit. I found its remains.           

The Ontology of Secrets

A path, a riddle, a jewel, an oath—anything can be a secret so long as it is                                     
kept intentionally hidden, set apart in the mind of its keeper as requiring                                     
concealment.                                     
–Sissela Bok, Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation                                     


I. A Path
 
near the lake. Seventeen
miles. Ice so thick
they say you can drive
on top of it. The Buick
sits idle, puffs of exhaust
tangible as cotton candy.
Your life is a series
of idling engines, men
waiting for someone
to say, Let’s go. You picture
the inside of a vault,
paper money stacked
in neat piles along the walls,
and when the men go
inside, the bills turn
to knee-high grass, dried
by the season, tossing
back and forth in the wind
that crossed the lake
from Canada. You wish this
were true. Instead, the men
take the bills from the vault
and your man brings some
back to you, says, Take this,
buy the baby something nice,
and you buy her a dress,
palest yellow; a new toy,
clean and soft. You take
the bills to the cellar, create
your own vault with old
bricks, an empty drum
where your father used to
keep his homemade wine.
 
II. A riddle
 
is like a recipe. Break
the bread into chunks.
Drizzle oil over the bread.
Lick your fingers.
 
III. A jewel
 
looks legitimate,
and no one is brash
enough to ask questions.
Under your skirt,
the softest part of you
is bruised. Your very
body, the fat and the chaff.
Private is the mouth
that doesn’t eat.
It glistens and glows.
Girl, you’ll be a wife
soon enough.
 
IV. An oath
 
makes you his wife.
He weds you with
the back of his hand,
with his belt. Don’t cry.
Count the bills in the cellar,
go to work. When you 
return, watch the child
fast asleep. Your body began
when she did. Like
a vault you kept her
and will keep her.
Your mouth is the vault
now. You speak so
little the child
can’t recognize
your voice when
you call her back
from the gulley. She’s
gone far enough; she’s
shouting into the ravine.

Biagio Brings Work Home

1947                                     
In the moment after his fist,
silence. Her jaw absorbs
 
all sound. Even the glass
breaking behind her
 
stills. The pain is longer
than a homily. Bodies
 
are strong enough to withstand
so much—she thinks
 
it would be better if
her teeth could shatter
 
like the glass, but no. Flesh
swallows impact like the lake
 
takes a body bound by bricks
and hides it within itself. The body
 
becomes stronger. The mind
inside learns not to react.


Transcription: Biagio Tells the Story of Red Rider

                                      1947                                    
Now once upon a time there was a little girl named Little Red Riding Hood. She was the state’s
champ jitterbug. She was jitterbugging on down to the forest, you know why? Because her mother
told her to take these two bottles of whiskey over to her grandmother’s because she was thirsty. So
Little Red Riding Hood was jitterbuggin’ on down the forest lane, and she run into one of them slick
slickers, you know, one of them guys from the town in one of them jitterbug suits. He was the Big
Bad Wolf. He had a zoot suit, a reet pleat, a big seat, and a stuffed cuff. So he stopped Little Red
Riding Hood, and he said, “Hey babe, where you going?” and Little Red Riding Hood said, “Step
aside big boy,” said “I’m on my way to my grandmother’s.” And uh, the wolf says, “Well what for?”
“My old mammy’s thirsty. I got a bottle of gin here and a bottle of liquor I gotta take to my
grandmother’s.” So the wolf said, “What you taking all that good stuff down to your old bag’s? Let’s
you and I drink enough to cut a rug right here.” So Little Red Riding Hood said okay, so they cut up
a rug. And what do you think happened?


After Months Without Trouble, Anna Grows Suspicious

                                      1946                                    
Someone left a bullet on the bathroom sink.
Outside, an engine exhales. Biagio, just home
from work, snaps open a Zippo
with two fingers and a thumb.
His friends gather at the fender
of the old Buick, pass a pack
of Camels from one hand to the next.
The radio announces bad weather—lake effect--
and on cue, snow begins to settle
on the sidewalk. The men flick their smokes
into the yard and drive away.
Anna puts the bullet in her pocket.
Across town, someone is digging a grave.



--
Sara Tracey is the author of Some Kind of Shelter (Misty Publication, 2013) and the chapbook Flood Year (dancing girl press, 2009). A local of northeast Ohio, Sara has studied at the University of Akron, the NEOMFA, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Art Spring 2024 >
      • Kristina Erny Spring 2024
      • Luiza Maia Spring 2024
      • Christy Lee Rogers Spring 2024
      • Erika Lynet Salvador Spring 2024
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Poetry Spring 2024 >
      • Terry Belew Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Diamond Forde Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Caridad Moro-Gronlier Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Charlie Coleman Spring 2024
      • Isabelle Doyle Spring 2024
      • Reyzl Grace Spring 2024
      • Kelly Gray Spring 2024
      • Meredith Herndon Spring 2024
      • Mina Khan Spring 2024
      • Anoushka Kumar Spring 2024
      • Cate Latimer Spring 2024
      • BEE LB Spring 2024
      • Grace Marie Liu​ Spring 2024
      • Sarah Mills Spring 2024
      • Faisal Mohyuddin 2024
      • Marcus Myers Spring 2024
      • Mike Puican Spring 2024
      • Sarah Sorensen Spring 2024
      • Lynne Thompson Spring 2024
      • Natalie Tombasco Spring 2024
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2024
      • Donna Vorreyer Spring 2024
    • Fiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Bryan Betancur Spring 2024
      • Karen George Spring 2024
      • Raja'a Khalid Spring 2024
      • Riley Manning Spring 2024
      • Adina Polatsek Spring 2024
      • Beth Sherman Spring 2024
    • Nonfiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Liza Olson Spring 2024
  • Issue #28 Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Art Fall 2024 >
      • Eric Calloway Fall 2024
      • Matthew Fertel Fall 2024
      • JooLee Kang Fall 2024
      • Jian Kim Fall 2024
      • Robb Kunz Fall 2024
      • Sean Layh Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Poetry Fall 2024 >
      • Jodi Balas Fall 2024
      • Clayre Benzadón Fall 2024
      • Catherine Broadwall Fall 2024
      • Sara Burge Fall 2024
      • Judith Chalmer Fall 2024
      • Stephanie Choi Fall 2024
      • Sarah Jack Fall 2024
      • Jen Karetnick Fall 2024
      • Ae Hee Lee Fall 2024
      • Svetlana Litvinchuk Fall 2024
      • Mary Lou Buschi Fall 2024
      • Angie Macri Fall 2024
      • Gary McDowell Fall 2024
      • Sam Moe Fall 2024
      • Camille Newsom Fall 2024
      • Elizabeth O'Connell- Thompson Fall 2024
      • Olatunde Osinaike Fall 2024
      • Jessica Pierce Fall 2024
      • Diane Raptosh Fall 2024
      • Isaac Richards Fall 2024
      • Robyn Schelenz Fall 2024
      • Christopher Shipman Fall 2024
      • Alex Tretbar Fall 2024
      • Ruth Williams Fall 2024
      • Shannon K. Winston Fall 2024
      • Wendy Wisner Fall 2024
      • Anne Gerard Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Fiction Fall 2024 >
      • J​oe Baumann Fall 2024
      • ​Morganne Howell Fall 2024
      • Matt Paczkowski Fall 2024
      • Ryan Peed Fall 2024
      • Gabriella Pitts Fall 2024
      • James Sullivan Fall 2024
  • Issue #29 Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Art Spring 2025 >
      • Irina Greciuhina Spring 2025
      • Jesse Howard Spring 2025
      • Paul Simmons Spring 2025
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2025
      • Elzbieta Zdunek Spring 2025
      • Na Yoon Amelia Cha-Ryu Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Poetry Spring 2025 >
      • Deborah Bacharach Spring 2025
      • Diego Báez Spring 2025
      • Jaswinder Bolina Spring 2025
      • ​Ash Bowen Spring 2025
      • Christian J. Collier Spring 2025
      • ​Shou Jie Eng Spring 2025
      • Sara Fitzpatrick Spring 2025
      • Matthew Gilbert Spring 2025
      • Tammy C. Greenwood Spring 2025
      • Alejandra Hernández ​Spring 2025
      • Ben Kline ​Spring 2025
      • ​David Moolten Spring 2025
      • ​Tamer Mostafa Spring 2025
      • ​Rongfei Mu Spring 2025
      • Cynthia Neely Spring 2025
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2025
      • ​Bleah Patterson Spring 2025
      • ​M.A. Scott Spring 2025
      • ​Liam Strong ​ Spring 2025
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2025
      • ​Cassandra Whitaker Spring 2025
      • Angelique Zobitz Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Fiction Spring 2025 >
      • Vanessa Blakeslee Spring 2025
      • K. J. Coyle Spring 2025
      • Meredith MacLeod Davidson Spring 2025
      • Jessica Mosher Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Nonfiction Spring 2025 >
      • JM Huscher Spring 2025
      • Qurrat ul Ain Raza Abbas Spring 2025