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Permafrost 41.2
“Broken Sconce” and “Memory of Sheep Rustling”
by Felicia Zamora Felicia Zamora is the author of the poetry books: Quotient (Tinderbox Editions 2021), Body of Render, winner of the 2018 Benjamin Saltman Award (Red Hen Press 2020), Instrument of Gaps (Slope Editions 2018), & in Open, Marvel (Parlor Press 2018), and Of Form & Gather, winner of the 2016 Andrés Montoya Poetry …
“Geas” and “1998 Winter Blackout”
by Zachary B. Johnston Zachary B. Johnston currently resides in West Monroe, Louisiana. He teaches Composition at Louisiana Delta Community College in the neighboring city of Monroe, and works as an editorial staff member for The Swamp. His work has most recently appeared in San Pedro River Review and Deep South Magazine.
“I see her ghost nowadays” and “When did the bow begin to quiver?”
by Sherdes Leona Sherdes Leona is a queer, Jamaican American whose work spans the mediums of photography, mixed media, and (performance) poetry. Sherdes Leona is pursuing her Bachelor of Arts in Art History and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Intermedia at Arizona State University. She works as a teaching artist with Free Arts for …
31-32
by Edward Lee Edward Lee’s poetry, short stories, non-fiction and photography have been published in magazines in Ireland, England and America, including The Stinging Fly, Skylight 47, Acumen and Smiths Knoll. He is currently working on two photography collections: ‘Lying Down With The Dead’ and ‘There Is A Beauty In Broken Things’. He also makes …
7 Excerpts from “TANGRAMS, A Sequence”
by Katrina Roberts (New Alchemy Finalist) Katrina Roberts has published four books of poems: Underdog; Friendly Fire; The Quick; and How Late Desire Looks; and the chapbook Lace, and edited the anthology: Because You Asked: A Book of Answers on the Art & Craft of the Writing Life. …
Affection
by Chad Hanson Chad Hanson serves as Chair of the Department of Social & Cultural Studies at Casper College. His nonfiction titles include, Swimming with Trout (University of New Mexico Press, 2007) and Trout Streams of the Heart (Truman State University Press, 2013). He is also the author of two collections of poems: Patches …
An Excerpt from Spare
by Michelle Lewis Faux-scientific data, ill-conceived studies, and colorful language, used to name and describe the feeble-minded families, accounted for some of the eugenics movement’s popularity. Poor white families were said to live in huts, or nests, with rickety chairs. They were observed to have a cracked skillet and two sleepy dogs, hair the color …
An Invisible Chain
by Sharon Hashimoto Every time Hisa shifted in the folding chair, it squeaked. It was hard to sit still when one was so uncomfortable, the metal cold against her thigh where her dress had ridden up. Even when she tried to cross her ankles, there was some loud announcement by the chair. Every …
Another Word for Dive Is Sound
by Mandy-Suzanne Wong 1. The Hydrophonist Looks barely human. Heavy boots fitted with claws. Limbs and trunk squared off by layers of thermal waterproofing. Something like a spacesuit with miles of cable hanging off it. She’s got no face. She’s all nylon. Orange helmet. Windproof goggles. I imagine exposed skin would turn purple …
Avoiding the Dishes
by E. Thomas Jones A crow struts in the turning lane between Arvest bank & Walgreens, shoveling its head toward ground; nearby, a thrush guards the bike path & with a dark pomegranate seed eye, watches cars roll closer & keeps still as they drive around it. Birds speck the roadside, flickering in, out of …
Behind-the-Scenes Shenanigans
Photos brought to you by Sean Enfield (Managing Editor and Social Media Coordinator), Rebecca Wood (Fiction Editor and Web & Design Editor), and Ryan Shek (fellow grad student and random passerby who was willing to take pictures) Battling light glares and a wobbly table (don’t try this at home) Feet (and our online issue) …
Boram
by Mark Keats “We’re having a baby,’ my wife says to me, though she’s sitting by the computer in the living room and looking at something I can’t see. She holds a glass of wine in one hand, clicks the mouse with the other. She’s listening to music but it’s too low for me to …
Casualties of the Vainglorious
by Kerry Donoghue Thursday Walter ran a hand over the shellacked perfection of his hair. Yes. The Vaseline gleamed on his front teeth, keeping his lips off his gums. With everything in order up top, he smoothed his fingers down his shirt and made sure the horse was in the barn below. “Thirty seconds,’ …
Diner Dialogue
Text: Janis Butler Holm Voice: Bett Butler Music: Joël Dilley His voice is soft, wondering, as if he has not said this many times before. She hates it when she is fixed by his eyes. They try to get to the bottom, try to see if every bit of her belongs to him. She …
Erykah Badu
by Mario Loprete Mario Loprete lives and works in Catanzaro, Italy. His world is a world that he shapes to his liking through art: creating virtual pictorial and sculptural movement, transferring experiences, photographing reality through the filters of perspective. Painting is Mario’s first love, though he is now working on an art series that combines …
I wake to sunlight climbing the walls
by Eliza Rotterman Eliza Rotterman grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her poetry has appeared in Volta, Quarterly West, Colorado Review and The Los Angeles Review and her work has been supported by fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center. Her first chapbook Dirt Eaters was published by Tupelo Press in 2018. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Love Me Not, Composure, and Before I Knew Your Name
by Brittany Kiefer Love Me Not Composure Before I Knew Your Name Brittany Kiefer is a contemporary lifestyle painter currently living in the Kansas City area, where she was also born. At a young age she was very fortunate to travel the world with her family. These travels inspired her at a young …
Permafrost 41.2 Traditional Table of Contents
2019 New Alchemy Contest Swarm – Mary Haidri & Melissa Gordon *New Alchemy Contest Winner she considers her question in fragments of verse – Laylage Courie The Tree of Abandoned Beehives – Kevin Kaiser 7 Excerpts from TANAGRAMS, a Sequence – Katrina Roberts Artwork Affection – Chad Hanson Love Me Not, Composure, & Before I …
post-card home
by Grace Covill-Grennan Grace Covill-Grennan is a carpenter, ecological surveyor, and writer living in Eastern Oregon. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Rockford Review, Genre: Urban Arts, Little Stone Journal, Timshel Magazine, The Impossible Task, Permafrost Magazine, and others. She is the author of Blockhead (Another New Calligraphy Press, 2019).
She considers his question in fragments of verse
by Laylage Courie (New Alchemy Finalist) Laylage Courie is a writer and maker of things from words. Her latest “thing” is the radio-play/concept album these fountains rare here about a woman’s quest for deep, peculiar springs. It’s available on Spotify, Youtube, Amazon, Apple Music, Google Play…and as a CD. Her work has appeared on stages …
Stillborn
by Kelan Nee Kelan Nee is a poet living in Maine working as a wooden boat builder’s apprentice. His work has been published in Stain’d Magazine and the Northern New England Review.
Swarm
Text by Mary Haidri Artwork by Melissa Gordon (Winner of the 2019 New Alchemy Contest) Mary Haidri is the author of the play Every Path (La Jolla Playhouse). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pigeon Pages, The Molotov Cocktail, Winter Tangerine, Portland Review, Fairy Tale Review, and others. She was the recipient of …
that war
by Elizabeth Sackett that war on the slipping, the dark and the road twitching its shoulders in sleep we exist at night to turn wheels for my feet on dark pedals for a gasp in my mother’s lungs for my father sulking for my sister and owl noises in a maze driving through her …
The Highest Mountain in the World
by Brian Laidlaw 1. I sit weekly with a little meditation group comprised of fellow writers, and last night we tried a guided meditation instead of our usual silent one. Someone looked on her phone and found a six-minute recording of a program called something like “Visualization for Calmness and Tranquility;’ she set the phone …
The Hungers
by Sionnain Buckley (an abecedarian) After Aiden moves their things into my apartment, lines up their collection of plants on the windowsill and adds their pile of sweaters to the shelf in the closet, once all of their suitcases are emptied and the cardboard boxes are flattened and resting on the curb, they walk …
The Tree of Abandoned Beehives
by Kevin Kaiser (New Alchemy Finalist) The rain fell often there; I was young then; the memory is strong. It was a gloomy place, and the residents were affected; I refuse to imagine what might have become of me if I’d stayed. I only lived there briefly; I’ll never return, and even if nothing …
Trajectories
by Daniel Bourne Trajectories (Biskupia Górka, GdaÅ„sk, September 11, 2013) Only the ghost words of milk and soap, rubbed out signs of childhood, the complicated bannisters varnished once …
Washed
by Sara Brown In a few months, laying poolside in Naples in hard suns is lost. Collecting warning freckles and sunburn we pretended we were immune to, 64 alligators and their scales of prism light sunning themselves in irrigation rivers off Pine Ridge highway with the tall tickless grass and marsh, traversing an Indian reserve …