Word Gets Around A collaboration between Kelli Austin and Rick Christiansen I don’t know what this means, but it feels auspicious.Yesterday, a black and blue swallowtail butterfly got trapped insid…

Kelli Austin and Rick Christiansen: “Word Gets Around” James Duncan: “Terminal Moraine” Howie Good: “Insomnia” Paul Koniecki: “(Misfits) Camping in the round” Lenore Rosenberg: “This story” Moudi S…

Psalms of the Wisconsin Dells Our car’s gone! She says to herselfbut loud enough for our double room. Forehead to the glass, the sun slantsthrough the window, longingfor a place where souls commune…

As It Ought To Be is proud to announce our nominees for the 2027 Best of the Net Anthology. Susan Cossette: “Bad Marguerite” Dolo Diaz: “Environmental Collapse” Joseph Geske…

Pedagogue I taught for the kids that smelled like campfire smoke,For the ones who grunted and twitched andLooked at the tops of their worn out shoes,For the ones whose parents stole their Pell mone…

Hakamairi I have always been hauntedby the idea of ghosts.Claimed I saw themand knew themand spoke to them like old friends. My great-grandfather passed first,soon after I turned four.To express my…

The Waiting Room Aquarium The fish know nothing of cataracts,retinas,biopsies,blood tests,the folded fearspatients carry in their pockets. They move through their blue republicwithout diagnosis. A …

A Full Head of Hair is the only thingmy mother’s fatherever left mea family inheritancefrom a cowardly lionnot black & whitepictures of weltson my young deadgrandmother’s facenot the courageto …

About the Author: Holly Day’s writing has recently appeared in The NoSleep podcast, Talking River, and New Plains Review, and her published books include Music Theory for Dummies and Music Composit…

Orpheus Leaves Me His Lyre-for Mike Finley, King of the St. Paul Poets the dried red and orangemaple leavesare fluorescent confettifragments of you, smilingcrunching shellsunder my black ballet fla…

Susan Cossette: “Orpheus Leaves Me His Lyre” Holly Day: “Float” John Dorsey: “A Full Head of Hair” David Anson Lee: “The Waiting Room Aquarium” Kelly Murashige: “Hakamairi” Tim Peeler: “Pedagogue” …

Tradition Said that Snakes Went Blind & Crazy in Late Summer, and They’d Actively Seek Us Out to Bite, Especially in the Water, so We Went Swimming AnywayDog days, late summer, and the snakes w…

Baseball GrassIt’s not natural pasture grassIt’s been bred in labsto grow like an office ruginstead of a weeddeep rootedheavily wateredintensely groomedIf left neglectedfor months, decades,unsightl…

Upstairs bedroomsat night, a city full of upstairssecond storey subdivided bedrooms:above shops, above cafesand restaurants. laundry slungon curtainrails. men in grubby t-shirtsashing rolled-up cig…

A CLOSE WATCH OF THE CATSo often as still as a stone,but stirred by something it sees.For now there is nowhere to hidefrom the screech of fury or fearin a creature’s restless rhythms,a confession o…

There’s a PlanFor now, there’s a plan and it’s spring again. You’re not dying,the oncologist says on the phone. Outside, the Carolina wrenhas returned to the back porch, scouting for a nest. Not fr…

FocusShe spends all daywatching a barren twigpulsate in the winter breeze,everything dry,everything waiting.She figures she can wait too,because there’s something else,there has to be something els…

Shatter the BlueSwallows scratch the dusk sketching longer, deeper shades of night –a gulf of inky sky lingering like the bitterness of this morning’s quarrel.A stone where lotus might have bloomed…

KB Ballentine: “Shatter the Blue” James Benger: “Focus” Celeste Budwit-Hunter: “There’s a Plan” Geoffrey Heptonstall: “A Close Watch of the Cat” DS Maolalai: “Upstairs bedrooms” Ken Moon: “Ba…

Dead machinesAt night, in the headlights,we see it at the entranceto the dump, slightly off centre:the washing machine,gleaming white in the dark,invested with importance.We pray that it may grant …

South 190th Street, OmahaDo you remember the way we grew up? You,somewhere in Washington, me somewhere else in Arizona. Bothknowing youth rooms where freshly-scrubbed seminary gradswith guitar stra…

Blood Draw at MGHThe curtain has an orchid waxing gibbous stain,a quarter inch grape jelly moon giving to off-beige fabric.The cloth spreads itself, completing the three walls.My throat words my bi…

CattywampusI scratch my skin and catchthe trunk of a hair with my fingernailthat is thicker and darker than the others,a hair which, when I try and pull it out,wriggles and writhes like a crawlerin…

Drab Horses (America, 1958)Before my cereal lost its crunch,I’d have the TV on and turnedto cowboy shows.  A motley bunchof bad guys riding round the bendtoward some shenanigans, a raceto no …

One whistle to go after.The man has waysof communicating with his animal -different whistles; one to send it out,one to bring back the prize. When the man takes his doginto a café, women cluckand c…

CellThe death of that day became a calling cardto look through a blue mason jar, filled with water,and try to find god. Imagine the microscopic life—floating protozoa, like ghost sperm,fertilizing …

Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal: “Do Not Be Afraid” Rose Mary Boehm: “Dead machines” Aarik Danielsen: “South 190th Street, Omaha” Jade Kleiner: “Blood Draw at MGH” Jeremy Nathan Marks: “Cattywampus” Sa…

Bad RoommatesIt’s just as well that when I met Mister Sherlock Holmeshe already shared lodgings with stolid Watson in Baker Street.We would not have got on. I could bear the violin, pipe,and chemic…

Garden of GuiltThe old rocking chairon the porch is moving witha ghost of wind andall the fallen leavesare sitting on the verge ofpanic, and it feelslike there’s thunder justbelow the floorboards a…

Cascade LoopThe sky looks high, you said as our car circledthe bloodshot dawn smoking on the mountains.We didn’t stop until we reached the iced coffeeat a female-run gas station in a valley of appl…

Woman and Sewing Machine After Joseph CornellAs beautiful as the chance meetingof a sewing machine and its mistresson a dissecting table,I am still as a dress modelcut from paper,waiting for you to…

Relationships, Your ArgumentYou told me to watch outbecause there were timeswhen you were out and out poisonous.But I nibbled. I even ate.And the longer we were together,the more you declared that …

Essay On WhistlerThe Princess from the Land of Porcelain,a French woman wearing a kimononext to a vase painted with trilliumsand a small flock of yellow-eyed juncos.Whistler, you blamed a bad revie…

The Way ForwardLet the truth of what you want riseslowly to the surface. These butterflywings are not a testament of ease. And allthese hurricanes are misunderstood.Even moths are merely seeking wa…

Point of ReferenceI tell friends the bottoms of my feettingle when I peer down at a gorge from a high bridge or watcha video of a cyclist popping wheelies on a roof or followthe wearable camera of …

Sarah Carleton: “Point of Reference” Nada Faris: “The Way Forward” Cal Freeman: “Essay On Whistler” John Grey: “Relationships, Your Argument” Kristen Keckler: “Woman and Sewing Machine” Garth Pavel…

WormsThe can is cold against her fingers.It’s hidden in her grip beneaththe table, her nail tracing the cool tin.Her feet don’t reach the floor,Twinkle Toes only brushing the tileas she kicks. If M…

Whatever Remains of What We Once Knew So Well?Whatever remains of drafts and notes scribbled in marginsthat can no longer be deciphered or elucidated? What ofthe pain once thought unbearable after …

loopybefore clocksthere were stone circles,listing like a groupof middle-aged womengathered for a girls’ night out—a way to grasp timewhen everything was a mystery,a place to gather,walk in circles…

About the Author: Bonnie Demerjian writes from her island home in the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska, a place that nourishes her writing. Her poetry has appeared in Unbroken Journal, A…

pep talkshe told mepeople have more fun in factories;they’re not so stuck up,everyone knows their place,knows they’re at the bottom,knows they have little,but deserves so much less,not like those o…

BluingSharing a spidery basementwith the furnace,our washing machinehad two cycles—hot & cold.I discovered my momhand-washingher “good” whitesin the kitchen sink,with some kind of blueliquid in…

R. A. Allen: “Bluing” James Benger: “pep talk” Bonnie Demerjian: “A Lesson Not Taught in Supermarket School” Adele Evershed: “loopy” Hedy Habra: “Whatever Remains of What We Once Knew So Well?” Mad…

She doesn’t wish me deadbut she dreams me a clot,a porcelain smearchasing a current of almostson their trip downriver.I’m not the mythic real boy,the bookend sonin grass-stained denim,baseball card…

The CeilingIt is one sixty-fourth of a chessboard that isn’t there.I am the king of the white square the size of a room.It is a sky without birds, except for the ones I remember.It is a sky without…

RetinueAt first, they’re happy to be part of the one hundredchosen to remain with King Lear in his retirement.The A-team. The posse. The ones who made the cut.Then the daughters begin to ask why 10…

About the Author: Joshua Lillie is a bartender in Tucson, Arizona. He is the author of the chapbook Small Talk Symphony (Finishing Line Press, 2025) and the collection The Outside They Built (Alien…

Ghost LegSometimeshe still tries to kickhis missing back legwhen we findthat right there spotscratch until we seeripples vibratejust beneath surfacerepeat messages activatedsent to nervesto spinal …

the musical of the bell jarshe plays with the soundin her mouthtongues the note aroundlike a two-ton stonetrying to dislodgethe musicfrom her throat.a cricket hidits songunder a trapdoorwhere a tur…

My Father’s ShirtsEarly mornings, I woke to the creakof the ironing board, the smell of hot cotton,my mother humming “O, Sole Mio,”as she hurried to iron a clean white shirtin time for my father to…