Category: THIN AIR ONLINE
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“Trojan Safety Officer” by Robert Kaye
Trojan Safety Officer My educational philosophy shifted after the spoon my brother Leo and I crafted from gallium dissolved up to the handle in Mother’s tea, a classic metallurgical joke. “Are you sure this isn’t poisonous?” she said, peering into the cup. “Totally safe,” Leo said. I wasn’t so sure. She had instructed us…
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“Barn Paintings” by Laurinda Lind
Barn Paintings For R. Paul Saphier 1944–2014 In your paintings in the barn gallery where we walk now, at first you are gone. The weeds are cynical and they shrink from the way we send our eyes at them. Someone’s lost the ball. Someone’s on the bubble, wants to be gathered in flowering arms. There…
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An Interview with Katherine Standefer: “I must tell the story I lived”
An Interview with Katherine Standefer: “I must tell the story I lived” Transcribed and Edited by Alli Mancz I first encountered Katherine Standefer’s creative nonfiction and experienced her brilliance in the spring of 2021. When I was a senior at Ohio University, the English department invited Standefer to give a reading to our broader literary…
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“What Can Still Grow” by Kelly Renick
What Can Still Grow Mom sits on her side of the porch table, an unashed cigarette cradled between her fingers. Corn and soybean fields stretch for miles in every direction, punctuated by lines of trees that give respite from the dry Kansas wind. I can’t tell if she’s grimacing in pain or frowning at the…
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“Verve” by Victoria Elizabeth Ruwi
Verve Touch is fingertips’ ken flutter: this skin. Sight is an altar, time altered: this verve. Taste is gospels’ succulent kin: this yen a soufflé scent on air, breeze genesis. Sound whirls wind within an ocean island curve. Touch is fingertips’ ken flutter: this skin enfolds pulse within an adapt heart hidden, binds blinded blood…
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“Learn How to Wilt Before You Bloom” by John Maurer
Learn How to Wilt Before You Bloom The chain mail made of layers of crystal shards May as well be wet tissue paper in this mental war In fact it is, in this battle, you must bleed to survive Those who do not scream out in agony, perish Those who sob on the soil, learn…
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“One Day” by Andrew Mobbs
One Day I’ll take those piano lessons, let my fingers meet the keys magnetically as if finding a long-lost brother, and one day, I swear I’ll open that 401k and bury the remnants of my Millennial cynicism, maybe even adopt a growth mindset, who knows, and one day, I’ll finish this book and that film…
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“Rita Moreno, say” by Joseph Mills
Rita Moreno, say Certain words have begun eluding her. She may know the one she needs, the name, say, of a famous actress. She will know the films she’s been in, and she can see her face, her dancing, hear her voice, but she can’t remember the name. It’s not that she’s forgotten it, not…
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“Regulus” by Jenny Bates
Regulus (for Cecil) When in the heights, Heaven was not named, And earth beneath did not yet bear a name… —Enuma Elish, Babylonian creation myth What if I say? Heart of the Lion Now, what if I say Heart of the last Lion… Moth, gripping the window screen wings tight against whipping wind and cold.…
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“Untitled #8” by Melissa Espinoza
Untitled #8 It happens most when you’re not around When bugs lazily bump into my windows Their small skeletons gently shattering in moonlight Pools of light gather around my ankles When I dream of giants and fire My fingers get lost in an endless search for your smell While my back arches And my skin…
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