Author: Thin Air Magazine
-
“This Is What I’m Dealing With (or, The Drawbacks of Being Reasonable)” by Colette Parris
This Is What I’m Dealing With (or, The Drawbacks of Being Reasonable) The fact that the state of everything isn’t keeping you up at night is keeping me up at night and there are not enough verys in the multiverse to convey how very much I wish that I was still ignorant with respect to […]
-
“Before I fall asleep each night I pray” by Gale Acuff
Before I fall asleep each night I pray to Miss Hooker, my Sunday School teacher, that she’ll forgive my sins and shortcomings and long-comings, too, for that matter, it’s not that I worship her but at least she’s closer at hand than God is, after all, I can actually see her and then I feel […]
-
Two Poems by Andrew Wittstadt
Fresh Flowers Flowers flooded the killing plane ground up lamb brain and daisies Dog pads sashayed into hot filth floors two-inch thick slop, chopped daisies Hit, wrought together garden fence circle-stomped, trampled daisies Mary pressured your hand till faint knuckles stone starred and daisied Stench immense and plain as barn shit squelched to hurt – […]
-
“That Hole is Everything” by Peter Grandbois
That Hole is Everything It wasn’t the first time a boy had brought me home. But it would be the last. His eyes were gentle. The way he watched me, perhaps imagining the two of us together. His voice quiet, the way he whispered all the things he wanted to do with me. His hands […]
-
Three Poems by Joseph de Luna Saguid (tr. by Kristine Ong Muslim)
Translated from the Filipino by Kristine Ong Muslim Island They drift farther and farther away— your children. They can no longer hear your beckoning voice. Playing cards are endlessly laid out during the wake. You fix your eyes on the relentless clawing of water. Drown It is only fitting to take off your clothes. Because […]
-
Walking the Line Between Today and Tomorrow: An Interview with Jake Syersak
I had the pleasure of interviewing poet, translator, and editor Jake Syersak about his debut poetry collection, Yield Architecture (Burnside Review Press, 2018). The collection is a series of beautiful contradictions and coalescence. Jake’s book displaces language one might think they’re familiar with. He makes words into experiences with lines like, “dove. the of I’m […]
-
Two Poems by Michael Chang
Poem Ending With Lines From Frank O’Hara “I have seen boys, also, walk in the street with their arms twined around each other’s necks, and always in each other’s society. They say they love each other very much.”—Jena Osman “As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly”—Proverbs 26:11 — In […]
-
“Bright White Noise” by Michael Chang
Bright White Noise [天使脸 • 恶魔心] [They say that poetry valorizes the specific] [When you write “blue collar” or “working class” or “rural,” you just mean white. Everyone already knows. Just say white] [Oh, you talked to a Pennsylvania/Ohio voter? At a throwback diner? Good for you] [In poetry you’re often trying to describe something […]
-
“My One and Only” by Leah Browning
My One and Only I hadn’t seen Amy in five years when I found out about her death the way one does nowadays, through a posting on Facebook. We had been coworkers at a small tech startup, once upon a time. Sometimes a few of us had walked to a sushi bar down the street […]
-
My Mother Wants a Cigarette by Ralph Savarese
My Mother Wants a Cigarette Our public health officials have discovered irony, that wind chime on the porch of the gods, that spangled irritant. They’re like an older person with an iPhone, taking selfies, watching videos. “Now, how does this app work?” They tell us smoking offers some protection from the virus. Apparently nicotine inhibits […]
Thin Air Magazine 