Curio: a Relief

By Jace Brittain

That word: Fortune being relative, I was made to understand Mr. Sonnabend had spent more than he could afford on the thing: “Well, it is, uh,” he said, “I, look, I mean, you, listen,” and I was just passenger to: he holds up a, he says, human horn, and he says, “I can’t make heads or tails of—" and I stopped him right there because I won’t let someone make a mockery of human anatomy, its delicate or dim damp illusory curves and casts, where light loses ground at the inner ear, and said: “That thing is a projection, external, unusual,” while, after all, my grandfather, who kept alive so long a tusked rabbit, regretted it, we thought, later, when he died, so Mr. Sonnabend, flustered, dropped it under the table, when I hunkered down there to find him: hands and knees, elbows propped and arms encircling, a collection of such oddities: the electric lamp between his teeth beamed at the tilt flitting from object to object as if he thought a curiosity might save him, however, however, however, however,

Jace Brittain, the author of Sorcererer (Schism Neuronics), has published writing in Annulet, Grotto Journal, ANMLY, dadakuku, and elsewhere.

Art by Jace Brittain.

Things I've Had Removed From My Body

By Rachel Holbrook

When I was a little girl, it was simple things like a splinter in the plump meat of my palm, slid beneath the skin like a dagger when I couldn’t resist the appeal of a weather worn fence rail, looking warm and smooth in the summer sun, but unaware that even the soft things bite sometimes, requiring Papaw to pull out his pocket knife, wiping the blade on his blue jeans and holding my small hand in his large, brown, veiny one, twisting it toward the light, so he could ease the sharp tip just under the topmost layer of skin, easing out the foreign object; not unlike the small shards of glass embedded in feet and toes, from dropped and shattered light bulbs or broken bottles tossed aside and waiting in pieces at the bottom of the river shoals where I placed tender steps while going in deeper; and, as I got older, but, let’s be honest, not very much older, the blades were pressed in deeper, separating layers of skin and fat and muscle, until out she came, waxy and screaming, it’s a girl, and there she was, no longer inside of me but not unlike a splinter in that with her departure from my inside there came a relief; and maybe it was the same desire to touch things that shine in the sunlight, that promise warmth and satisfaction that led to the son, and the second son, and the daughter, all pulled screaming from the safety of me, all taking parts of me on their way out; and I can’t forget the little one, like the splinter, that burrowed much deeper in the wrong place, and how I cried when they took her out of me, promising me relief would come, and how I knew they were lying; how I knew she wasn’t like the wisdom teeth or the appendix that I never needed in the first place; but, yes, there was an ending when the bleeding stopped and the pain ebbed away, and I hate them for being right that relief did eventually come.

Rachel Holbrook is a proud Appalachian, a queer woman, an Army wife, and a mother of six, who writes from her home in Knoxville, TN.

Art by Jay Baker, an artist from Colorado living in Oregon; he records music as Tom Foe.

How Do You Procure Your Weed?

By Justin Karcher

After work I head to Caffe Aroma to unwind when Sean shuffles up to me needing to use my phone but most of the calls go to voicemail and as he sighs, I notice there’s a dirty baggy in his left hand and he explains he found the weed in the Jim’s Steakout parking lot in a gasoline rainbow and he makes me smell it and it smells like an abandoned auto shop but Sean looks longingly at the baggy and tells me it smells like sixth grade, how it was probably stuck to a tire, the people in the car driving all over Buffalo never knowing the high they had underneath it all and I think it’s funny how close we are to the things that will make us feel great but never know it and I really want to tell him that the weed probably wasn’t stuck to any tire and that some tired-looking submaker probably dropped it after finishing their shift but why, let people have their hero’s journey because when I glance over Sean’s shoulder out the window I see the panhandling sun starting to set and in a few hours I know we’ll all be chasing highs in low places, what it’s like coming up from the underground and not making it all the way.

Justin Karcher (Twitter: @justin_karcher, Bluesky: justinkarcher.bsky.social) is a Best of the Net- and Pushcart-nominated poet and playwright born and raised in Buffalo, NY.

Photo provided by author.