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Cockroach / Carol Blaizy D’Souza
The curvy sink slopes in invitation to scurryA pale porcelain country At first surreptitiously, then the cockroach skidsWhisking between the faucet and the strainerSecure in the silky-smooth darkness of the room Just when contemplating to wedge itself betweenthe steel and the smooth place,the fluorescent light goes on … Carol Blaizy D’Souza is a poet, translator and…
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INTIMATE ANATOMY / CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
RIC Journal — Call for SubmissionsAnniversary Issue 2026: Intimate AnatomyDeadline: 15 January 2026 What is inside and what is outside?What belongs to you and what belongs to me—inside you, outside me, between us?For our anniversary issue, we invite you to explore the shifting borders of the body and the self, the delicate frontier where intimacy…
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Infested with Angels / Brian Builta
Try as I might, I cannot get rid of them. Wind from passing prayers blow through their hair, lifting wings and flowing robes, the smell of cake, glitter everywhere, bare feet and backdraft, inescapable fluttering like a swarm of butterflies, a million puckering lips cheek kissing allatonce. Something so close and yet untouchable. Something too…
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4 May 2025 / Jeremy Fernando
Yesterday I watched hope disappearas my fellow countrymen went to the polls, and chose not to choose. Which is not to say that not choosing be not a choice. There though be something notjust cynical in choosing the status quo when it continueshurting so many, but when chosen by those hurting both masochistic and a surrender to hopelessness. …
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licorice trigonometry / Mark Young
The law of cosines states thatthe square of any side of a stickof licorice can be recast as an au-bergine whose rhyming structurefollows that of a pantoum or, oc-casionally presents its entirety asif it were a ballade conceived byFrançois Villon. “But where are the snows of yesteryear?” youmight ask, only to realize a lick oflicorice…
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Scum Palace / Kokum Mukul
The ceiling had been leaking since way before the curfew began. No, though some claim so, it wasn’t the curfew that caused the leak. It only exposed the cracks that hid ingeniously in-between the going-out and coming-in of our everyday routine. Now that we remain indoors all the time, all the tenants are ceaselessly fighting…
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Storyline Predator / Ian C Smith
That winter in this cold rusted iron and weathered brick coastal area we scrounged firewood from wrack to heat our rental above the bike repair shop. Liking the traffic’s background noise, I embraced our stringent circumstances, the way this accentuated moods of hope and longing. You don’t need an expensive hot air balloon trip to…
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Starlight / Jonathan Jay
“Come as you are, as you were, as I want you to be…” You’ve heard the song before and you’ll hear it again, this time reverberating from staticky speakers stacked atop a makeshift stage in a small nameless bar, one of many lining the streets of San Blas. Why are you here? You came here…
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Rat King / A. R. Tivadar
Rat king Scurries in unison across the pavement By drainage holes and fallen tickets Ripped in the middle like a dress. The bouncer takes a look at mine, Then at the tendons in my neck As rat whiskers brush my ankles. He grabs my chin and pulls. The kiss is quick enough, and He sends…
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An Egg Keeper / Eva Liukineviciute
It is just the one sheep who will not fall in line. And you know we have tried everything. The carrot and stick, the shears and the dye. But nothing works, I tell you. Nothing will entice him to come in when the other sheep do and it is embarrassing – I am truly ashamed.…
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Paper Birch / Michael L Sevy
looking out from my bedroom at the lone white birch in the front field, I notice a few suckers coming up, sprouting impetuously from the rootstock that I’ll need to cut back, the paper birch, paper because of the nature of its bark, thin, flexibrittled and layered loosely against the trunk, is bent over, this…
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Regenerative memories / Hiromi Suzuki
Opening the window wide, the cold, hollow scent of the early morning drifts in. From the attic of the apartment, an orchestra rehearsal echoes through the empty air. The playback machine of the vocal cords has worn out, the soprano voice is hoarse. Feeling the hint of rain seeping through the exterior mortar. Suddenly, a…
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Appalachia Waltz / Atreyee Majumder
The afternoon crescendo dancedon motherboard, sisterboard, un-networked.Dumps on the hard drive.Photos of parties, lovers, somersaulters.Now gone, gone now.If I had to recover my mindfrom the days of sunsets pastQuick glimpses, dead plants,burnt eggs, love letters, I would dream up a foreign computer.A foreign computer laced with my mind.In the dream, my past computerplayed the 90s…
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