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Independent, Reader-Supported Publishing
March 2023
Readers Write
Drug Experiences
Mushrooms in the desert, pot on a family vacation, black hash on a nuclear submarine
The Dog-Eared Page
The Blue Devils Of Blue River Avenue
My mother didn’t like my going over to the Sambeauxs’. There was something mysterious and menacing about that house: a bloodcurdling scream, a silhouette of a knife in the window, a wolf on its hind legs with a leather tail scuffling along behind the juniper trees.
Quotations
Sunbeams
The feminine in the man is the sugar in the whiskey. The masculine in the woman is the yeast in the bread. Without these ingredients the result is flat, without tang or flavor.
The Sun Interview
The Strong, Silent Type
Jaclyn A. Siegel On Masculinity And Male Body Image
Risak: How is the “masculine body” defined?
Siegel: In the U.S. we typically see a mesomorphic ideal: lean, muscular, and with a low body-fat percentage. This is persistent across the U.S. and common in LGBTQ+ communities in particular. Sexual-minority men are at elevated risk for eating disorders due in part to the lean ideal being perpetuated in their communities.
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Captain’s Log
7:17 — Wife yells, Oh, God, look! Dusk now, harder to see. What? I say. Bear! she says. To right, where riverbank gives way to pasture, large beast lurks in shadow of tree. Dark, terrible beast, now moving slightly toward us. Large, dark beast says, Moooo.
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
Sparrow’s Guide To Business
When you walk on sand, you leave footprints. When you work, you leave “workprints.” The people who come behind you will judge you by your workprints.
Essays, Memoirs & True Stories
The End Of The World
Maybe the end of the world wasn’t fire and explosions and lawlessness and bodies in the streets. Maybe the end of the world was some smaller thing.
Fiction
The Den Mother Has Her Say
Before we eat our snow cones, pet this dog. Don’t expect to earn a Wolf badge for your troubles. . . . Move slowly down the back, like you’re taking your fingers on a trip, until you get to the bulge on the haunch. Yes, it’s a tumor. Yes, it’s cancerous. Pet it like it’s nothing special, just part of the dog.
Photography
A Thousand Words
A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.
Poetry
Selected Poems
My son and I are sitting on his back porch, / early October, the gold locust leaves above his barn / giving the morning light something to shine in. / An unfelt breeze makes itself known / when the leaflets shake and shimmer.
— from “The Last Day, Again”
Poetry
Ode To My Brother’s Face Tattoos
At twenty you’ve managed to erase / our dad’s face from your own, / blacked out his sharp cheekbones / with roses, marked each eyelid / with an upside-down cross to distract / from his glossy brown irises.
Poetry
The Patron Saint Of Traffic Lights
My child is in the backseat with her mother / and can’t understand what’s happening, / keeps forgetting we’ve already told her / that she fainted and hit her head hard / on our living room’s stone floor
