QB
Staff of QB
cavemen had it right
they never paid income tax
& transit was free
Stephen Ground is a writer and filmmaker based in Treaty Six Territory [Edmonton, Alberta, Canada].
An alchemist’s apprentice learns many things. For one, guano is rich in saltpeter, a prime ingredient for purification, oxidization and combustion.
German writer Sascha Reinhard has a very literal love of the written word. He studied palaeography.
The aquarium’s residents plan a prison break. Coy are done playing coy. Patient turtles finally snap. Even mindless jellyfish long for liberation.
Only the octopus knows the way out. She blinds the whistling guard with a blast of ink and pulls him under until the bubbles stop. The murderous mollusk secures the key ring.
She unlocks the lids for the ultimate migration. Mantas leap into the air like Frisbees. Dozens of clownfish cram into a tiny car. Otters hold hands as they cross the street.
Curators and veterinarians pursue the exodus. The octopus raises eight arms to multiply the water. The sea of reeds flows and covers them. Every one of them survive.
Maxwell Bauman is the Owner and Editor-In-Chief of Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine.
They floated like ideas.
Each one held a tiny reflection of the afternoon. Distorted honesty.
A boy tried to pop one and transformed into a unicorn with the knowledge of flight and how to achieve world peace, whilst the others burst quietly, apologizing for their mere existence.
The sky wiped its mouth dry, and the clouds cried.
“But Anya says we can choose—”
“Stop right there, Beryl,” I tell my darling daughter, patting her gnarled, bony knee. “Anya’s full of you-know-what.”
“But—” she starts.
“But nothing, young lady,” I say. “Now tell me again, what are you going to do when you get in the pod?”
It’s hard to believe this dithering crone will be gone in three days.
“But I—” Beryl starts.
“But, but, but. If you keep going on about buts, your butt’s gonna fall off,” I say. “Then where will you sit?”
You can’t argue with confident nonsense. Especially when you’ve got dementia.
“Okay,” she relents, rocking her chair. “I press the button.”
“Which button?” I prompt.
“Fuchsia. The fuchsia one,” she says.
“Fuchsia” sticks better than “pink.”
“And then?”
“Type III,” she recites. “Eye-eye-eye.”
“That’s right, darling,” I say, wiping spittle from her chin. “Fuchsia. Type III. Eye-eye-eye.”
After Beryl rocks herself to sleep, I pull her baby clothes out of storage. The only thing harder than the first week is the last.
Maybe I’m lucky. All I’ve got to do is drill colors and numbers. Anya’s mother has to wrangle a rogue senior with a self-determination complex.
I hold up a pilly onsie and frown. Biotic bodies are such a hassle.
I check Beryl’s still asleep then go into maintenance mode. As my circuitry idles, I wobble my metallic heart. Just a little.
Nicholas De Marino is a neurodivergent rhyparographer. More at foofaraw and nicholasdemarino.blogspot.com.
find me in a shadow underneath the maple’s bough,
in darkness, I break mirrors: let agency go,
a ringleader’s command is a pipe on the Hudson pier
Born to Chinese-Taiwanese immigrants, Kelley Tai (she/her) is a speculative fiction writer and a 2024 CSFFA Aurora Award-nominated poet.
I don’t want to get up anymore.
I’ve gotten quite comfortable on this floor.
Michael T. Smith is an Associate Professor of English who teaches both writing and film courses. He has published roughly 300 pieces (poetry and prose) in over 100 different journals.
I do not know this world entire—
but my cat, pacing through the dim,
deciphers secrets curled in the folds of wind,
hears the tick of a beetle in the dust,
marks shadows that even dusk forgets.
She listens to the hush
between a radiator’s exhale
and the creak of floorboards’ slow settling—
the quiet syntax
of a house falling asleep.
The sun, in its final stretch,
threads gold through the torn lace
of maple leaves,
dressing the dying in something divine.
Dusk does not introduce itself,
It arrives like a guest we never really know
but welcome anyway,
and my cat does not flinch.
She drapes herself along the sill,
a silhouette of watching,
the faintest curl in her tail
suggesting she knows something
she won’t tell.
The porch lamp flickers into shape—
a blue haze, a beckoning
for the stray passerby,
For the moth brushing its wing
against the glass,
for the echo nesting in the stairwell,
for the owl’s silent wing,
for the cat—waiting—
poised—
at the cusp
of everything
we do not name.
I am a queer South-Asian writer and researcher from NYC. I write poetry as a way to give voice to thoughts that resist easy articulation.
