illustration by Sonia Camacho
The Nostalgia of Late Capitalism
by Howie Good
How many of you know that a pack of sharks is called a “shiver”? Probably not as many as know that Vincent would have died in obscurity if it weren’t for his brother, Theo, the art dealer. Butterflies need the warmth of the midday sun to be active and aren’t seen at dusk. Birds are often active then. The Golden Oriole, Yellow Hammer, or Goldfinch have yellow-and-black wings that can look gold and gray in the setting sun. I remember punches being thrown, children being trampled, everyone fighting for a better view.
It’s Now
by Mark F. Ellis II
Today I gave my son a watch. He is three, but he knows time better than me—it’s not a set of coordinates, a way to locate yourself on a curve. The watch is loose on his wrist, but he doesn’t care. He stares at its bright plastic face, the whole of time swelling like a tide beneath the moons of his eyes. At once I am with my father, in a skiff, waltzing on the Gulf’s infinite oscillations, no direction, only there, more, now. A pelican dove and I turned to my father, but his eyes saw an older ocean, cast out into water that was both there and not, and he looked at his watch, which had been given to him by his father in that same vessel. The only words he said that afternoon were: There is more than one way to drown. My son tugs at my shirt and points to his wrist, at the watch’s blank digital display. “It’s broken,” I said. “No, Daddy,” he says, “it’s now.”
No Peeking
by Dalton Day
No Peeking
I empty my pockets.
I have nothing but pennies.
When I die, my ghosts
will leave these
over my eyes.
Why? You say,
turning the bear tooth
I gave you in your hands.
It’s a surprise, I tell you.
I put the pennies back, and
cover your eyes.
It’s already snowing.
No peeking. ◥
Sonia Camacho is a Berlin-based illustrator and artist born in Seville, Spain, who currently develops illustration and design projects in Europe. See more at www.soniacamacho.com.
Howie Good co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely, who does most of the real work. He has a poetry collection, The Middle of Nowhere, forthcoming from Olivia Eden Publishing.
Mark F. Ellis II is a creative writing graduate, residing and recluded in Austin, Texas, where he writes poetry and nanofiction, and deepens his obsession with craft beer, metanarratives, and Frederic Chopin.
Dalton Day is a poet out of Asheville, North Carolina. He is a wild thing. He drinks a lot of chocolate milk. He received his B.A. in Literature and Language from UNC Asheville, where he was also awarded the 2012 Topp/Grillot Poetry Prize. His work has appeared in Foxing Quarterly, decomP, Radius, Ghost House Review, and the forthcoming Heavy Feather Review, among others. He is a poetry editor for FreezeRay Poetry. His first chapbook, Supernova Factory, was released in May 2013 by On the Cusp Press. Find him at myshoesuntied.tumblr.com.