Shiny Lures

She lifts two buckets from his truck before he can tell her what to do. The clank and weight of skimmers, rods and spinning reels, plastic tackle boxes full of lures that once fascinated, now weigh her down, pull her shoulders toward the ground. He grabs the auger, heads onto the ice. She looks to the barren, alpine landscape, the horizonless sky, drowning in gunmetal gray. He beckons from a distance, leads the way, and she follows, her numb feet seeking traction on patches of snow that shift to the call of the fickle wind. Far from shore, he rigs a rod with translucent line, his favorite chartreuse, soft-bodied jig that hides the hook, the lead sinker, while she lies flat on her belly, peers into the hole she drilled, scooping slush with bare, blue fingers. He yells something, but his words are ferried away by another gust and when she looks up, she can no longer see him through swirls of dust, the biting air. She raises her hood over her ears, suspends her face over the window to the world below lit in diffuse sunglow, where Kokanee salmon dance among the weeds and leopard frogs slumber safe in the deep. She imagines herself as an eel, slick with no feet or hands, slipping into the still water, to slither away and burrow in the shimmering sands.

Elisabeth Harrahy

Elisabeth Harrahy 's work has appeared in Paterson Literary Review, Zone 3, I-70 Review, Constellations, The Cafe Review, Passengers Journal, Blue Heron Review, Ghost City Review , and elsewhere, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. She is an associate professor of biology at UW–Whitewater.

This Is First Son | Second Son

This is firecracker fuse out, of the mouth of a mostly-dead fish, scooped from the bait bin where our grandpa would keep a few— fireworks in the hands of too young boys with too much time and not enough teaching.

This is balled fist bust in face of younger brother for little more than frustration, pull back the moment when the fist gives way to blood against snow and a hollowing wind through the gut.

This is knowing eyebrow raised in recognition of palm through the drywall during the week spent weening out the New Year.

This is stood staring over the sparkings of a lemon-lemon-yellow lighter, a blaze of rage roaring behind our irises choosing anger over the world.

This is watching ourselves make the same mistakes as we are undone in the hands of the men who made us.

Nick Sengstock

Keep On

I saw you sitting on the roof that night, the stars having descended From their dusty perches to hang Like old dreams from your shirt pocket.

I watched you for a long time, afraid Of the ghosts sitting to your side. It has always been that way for me, A hereditary fear speckled with debris, Centuries of minerals, river clay, bones.

The war never ended here, you said. Merely hid itself in the violent heat, disguised the earth as a tangle of roads, concrete and black wires, crumbling fences, beige and soot, candy and gasoline. A burning house. A forced slumber. The death rattle of any final winter.

Later, we got back into the van and you told me about a dream where you were riding atop a speeding bus, how your hands, frozen and dew-soaked, played against the valley wind, gripped the metal luggage racks tight around sharp curves.

You’ve ached for that freedom ever since, searched for it outside of truck stops, behind grimy outhouses and laundromats, under rusted trucks and unwashed plates, rotted red porches fallen away from their houses, crusts of old bread, cracked windows, a once-pristine wrought iron bench, a long odyssey, your magnum opus, a desiccated pilgrimage you always seem to survive.

Alexandria Delcourt (Abenaki and Filipino) is a writer, editor, educator, and storyteller. Her work focuses on travel, generational trauma, and colonialism, and has appeared in Narrative, Poetry Quarterly , Cream City Review , Aster(ix) , Profane Journal , Kalyani Magazine , and many others. She lives in Madison with her husband, daughter, and two cats.