note 1: everything murmurs with the tension of preparation for flight. gravity is not binding, but a pressure joculating against itself. the punchline: it could let go at any second.

The Mariners

Kat Gregor

There is something slightly mystic in the taming of all seas. We once imagined sailing off the edge of the map—and then, the story goes, certain circumnavigations proved us wrong.

8.1

A Living Room

Brian Kim Stefans

A living room / becomes a nation // the moment / it is no longer a salon, // the language yet / shared. // These are notes / for a white revolution.

8.1

Sugar (Chapter 2)

Derick Whitson

8.1

Columbus’s Egg

Taylor Napolsky

The balance on the edge is / vertical, like a unicycle, straight before gravity; standing / for a long, pulsing gasp

8.1

The Doppelganger Edits her Wikipedia Entry

Kathryn Smith

she served as / She was the first woman to / [citation needed] // She chaired the [citation needed] // [edit] / [edit] /

8.1

How to Skin a Rabbit

Jen Hahn Nielsen

spread my legs to look / for the point of thaw / my coccyx snaps from your teeth, the force / of your bones

8.1

Origins of Our Carbon Orchestra

Melissa Boda

8.1

Year of Body Armor

Jesse De Angelis

Now I sell personal protective equipment to people / with money plus guns. Our thoughts go out / begins what I write.

8.1

From KIM

Sacha Archer

[O]pening an image of Kim Jong-un with Wordpad, thereby creating a wasteland of language at the press of a button (THE button).

8.1

Trumpion

Moonseok Choi

Tendrils will stroke them with such force / (all will be made great) / that you will be biased to disown me, again. / Won’t you renounce that orange face?