Nancy fiddled nervously with the adjustable bed, raising and lowering her husband in it. Evan wore low-cut scrubs, and they tried to make jokes about his shaved chest, sharpie-lines grazing his ribs. “I paid a little extra so I could watch the procedure,” Nancy told Evan. Their insurance being what it was, Nancy was paying … Continue reading Replacement Parts by Michael Milne
Tuesday originally appeared on Ellipsis Zine. When I got up this morning, I left my spine in the bed. It was strange to stand up with no spine—I flopped and melted, and my head slid down my neck. I grabbed my spine, but my hand melted down it and some of my fingers came off … Continue reading Tuesday by Emily Livingstone
All summer, the nights stayed brutally hot, ninety degrees at midnight. Esther would find me in the early evenings and we’d escape to cool places, air-conditioned movie theaters and basement galleries, then a nocturnal cafe on Telegraph Street where each table had its own electric fan. Esther would fold our straw wrappers into wrinkled sea … Continue reading A Nearly Beautiful Thing by Megan Arkenberg
“Catch fire? Well, then, at least I’ll be a spectacle to behold, don’t you think?” Nozomi’s skin looked translucent, delicate. As if a simple sneeze could be enough to hurt her. “And stop looking at me like that!” “I’m not.” “Yes, you are. Everybody does.” She stepped lightly across the floor, moving next to the … Continue reading Missingness by Roberto Bommarito
The new planet had rolled out of a bottle of Advil that morning. The bottle had been opened and dropped, and a few of the Advil fell out and rolled under the dresser, and the planet,, with its fog and ocean, fell out, too, and rolled under the dresser. The bottle had been almost empty … Continue reading Planet Sea Fog by Julie A. Hersh
In the kitchen, I find Clara by the sink, looking out the window. Still. Dozens of eggshells are scattered along the granite counter. Broken in halves, segments, shiny egg whites hang off jagged edges. The morning light falls across Clara’s messy braid, making her hair look almost red. But she shifts, and her hair is … Continue reading Yolk by Jennifer Fliss
The Shadow Pantomimes must have drawn the ace of spades for me; that was how I ended up with the Whist Clowns of Old Frizzle pounding on my front door. I was in the shower at the time, my hair matted in suds of rosemary-mint shampoo. They jiggled the lock before the door creaked open. … Continue reading The Whist Clowns of Old Frizzle by Ivy Spadille
Jack carries around an empty room for almost a week before he has the nerve to do more than just peek inside. It’s in another universe, a divergent splinter of this one. That’s what Charlotte says when he calls her from the road and shares the photos he’s taken from outside the door. Jack barely … Continue reading Home Away From Home by Fred Coppersmith
An introduction to HWL, by Ani King, EiC: YOU MIGHT WONDER why Syntax & Salt, a magazine focused on speculative fiction, and only recently dipping a toe into poetry, might be publishing HWL, a terrific send up of tech culture, based on Howl, which is perhaps the most well known Allen Ginsberg poem of his … Continue reading HWL by Margo Stern
My aunt kept every mirror she ever broke. She kept many things: used toothbrushes, twist-ties with the wires sticking out, and those little white squares of plastic that close bags of bread. They lay jumbled at the bottom of old yogurt containers until she pulled them out to clean with or fasten things with. The … Continue reading Mirror Images by Eleanor Pearson