Hands | Rebecca Ruth Gould

"When they first met, he shook her hands boldly and directly, as if it were a normal thing to do and not a violation of the law in the Islamic Republic of Iran..."

Disowned Light | Miranda Sun

"Sister / to a knife, but the moon cuts / water and ships and when she feels like it, / the sky. The knife cuts the red / from apples and unrunning lambs and once, / my father’s thumb..."

Death Mountain | Matt Rebholz

"Up in the air anything could go wrong. Someday the engine could cut—maybe fuel had been leaking, spraying the fields like pesticide rain. The propeller would grind to a stop but the plane would push forward awhile, gliding, silent..."

Image Formation | Sabrina Gaskill

Sabrina Gaskill lives in rural New Mexico. She makes experimental text-visual work and is also a teacher and psychotherapist.

In the Beginning | Kelsey Pinckney

"We went to church and when we met and sat together for the first time, it felt like always. B was always with R, which was more like usually, since nothing was quite like our always..."

To the Fossil | Casey Golomski

Casey Golomski lives and works as an anthropologist in New England and Southern Africa. He is the author of Funeral Culture (Indiana University Press).