On "After He Stays" by Melanie Yarbrough (378 words) ***

Yarbrough short tale is a summary of a relationship metaphorically transformed into a single first night. Here is a couple whose knowledge of one another is still shaky and but whose liking for one another is enough that there is a kind of comfort they wouldn't otherwise feel. In that, we see things as they might be years down the road, and what the ultimate cost of that might be. Read the story here at Ramshackle Review.

On "When I Was a Fish" by xTx (317 words) ****

Want a lawyer to take care of you after a death in the family? xTx describes one way to go about it. The story here is a leap of the imagination, twice over. It's the imagined answer to an unanswered message, and as we get deeper into the possibilities, the imagined becomes more real than the real. The story transitions from one to another, even in the tenses used--from present to imagined future and back to present (in that imagined future). And what of the music of language here--teeth barricading a tongue. Fantastic stuff here at Ramshackle Review.

On "The Scar" by Cathy Barber, "From Don't Leave Me Scarlett Johansson" by Thomas Patrick Levy, and "Half-hearted Apology" by Nicole Koroch

I find Barber's "Scar" to be a powerful poem in part because of what it hints at. Like many a good short story, it leads us down a path of history and drops us off just before things are about to turn, or at least may turn. That we don't know--but that we suspect--the final ending is the scary part. Read the poem here at Marco Polo.

Levy's poems are musings from a lover--or a fan--and they're spectacularly poetical, full of odd turns of phrase and metaphor, unexpected dabblings in linguistic dexterity. Levy asks Johansson not to leave him, but my question is, is she listening? Because if she isn't, she needs to be. Read the prose poem here at Diagram.

Koroch's apology pulled me in just with its title, and the poem is pretty much what the title says. As you can imagine, it's kind of funny--and kind of sad. I hope to avoid building friendships like this one. Read the poem here at Ramshackle Review.