Your Daughter Will Miss The Circus
by Jerrod Schwarz

You couldn’t know
that eclipses turn rats
savage and hungry for corn
snakes, know flattened scales
could flick your tires and your spine
into a semi-truck on your way for happy
meals, into a huddle of crows who have ferried
lesser men above the River Styx’s wreckage.

 

JIMMY CONSIDERS TYPOGRAPHY
by Jason Marak

Un ange passé. Nice isn’t it? I was sitting next to this woman on the F train and she was reading a book in French and I was just looking and she turned the page and I noticed her hands. She had the most complicated hands I’ve ever seen. Striking and beautiful. Veins very near the surface, but tastefully so. Have you ever considered the expressive possibilities of hands? Anyway, when she turned the page there it was at the top with lots of wonderful white space around it.

Un ange passé

I don’t speak a lick of French but just the look of it there—perfect. I took out my notebook to jot down the phrase and she noticed me jotting. I apologized. She smiled. Smiled. Can you believe it? Right there on the F train, a goddamn miracle.

 

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Jerrod Schwarz is an MFA student at the University of Tampa . He has been published in Dirty Chai, Four Ties Literary Review, and others. In his day-to-day life, Jerrod does whatever he can to escape the heat of his Floridian climate, and has been known to take part in staring contests with alligators who would challenge an otherwise refreshing swim.

Jason M. Marak’s work has appeared in a number of print and online journals including Raritan, The Paris Review, 100 word story, and matchbook. More online at smokeandotherindications.blogspot.com and Twitter at @jasonmmarak.