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Physical Health

Poetry

Lumps of Coal

He was ten and drove a team of mules / through the shadows in mine shafts, / pulling a wagonload of coal / that glinted in the carbide light / anchored to his cotton cap.

By Robert P. Cooke December 2023
Poetry

Forecasting

November steals light. Its groaning, / overstuffed table force-feeding / December’s mandatory twinkle. Sticky / sugar & shine. A buffer for the hangover / January brings, when we huddle & low, hay damp / in our shuttered mangers, pockets emptied / of savings & saviors

By Amy Dryansky October 2023
Fiction

Scale

She had read of various roughened skin patches that the internet described as “scales,” but these were not those. These were not, in fact, human.

By Jen Silverman September 2023
The Sun Interview

No Small Wonder

Dacher Keltner On The Science Of Awe

Emotions aren’t discrete bubbles. They are blending into each other all the time. You might be feeling awe and wonder at the miracle of life, and also realizing that we all die, which perhaps moves you closer to terror. In our work we try to find what’s true in it all.

By Mark Leviton August 2023
Fiction

The Normal Force

The waiting room was mostly full of pregnant women that day, and then there were the rest of us. It made me feel sorry for the ultrasound techs, who must spend their days bouncing back and forth between rooms with babies and rooms with not babies.

By Molia Dumbleton July 2023
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Chair/Body/Home

What would it take for me to no longer want to leave my body? What would it take for me to see my body as my home? I don’t know, really, except perhaps more exposure to different ideas about disability, different ideas about beauty and worth.

By Hannah Soyer June 2023
Readers Write

Pain

Breaking a leg, giving birth, suffering for beauty

By Our Readers May 2023
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Observations On Ice

We have been repeatedly warned about the dangers posed by calving ice. Yet I still hope to see it: a spectacle of devastation. Reveal yourself to me, I demand. The glacier answers with silence.

By Synne Borgen May 2023
Essays, Memoirs, & True Stories

Field Guide to Falling Ill

I can’t say what it’s like to suffer from a severe, chronic illness, the kind that knocks your life into a new orbit. But I can tell you what it’s like to be in the postscript of illness, its undead state, where the crisis has passed but recovery isn’t certain. It’s a dull, heavy place.

By Jonathan Gleason April 2023
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

By James Davis May February 2023