FOUR WAY REVIEW

An Electronic Literary Journal

Category: Issue 4

  • AUTOIMMUNE by Micaela Mascialino

    when she hears the word she pictures a car crashing into a column     her spine she’s told other words invasion foreign attack now missiles are guided into finger joints the left elbow      a combat zone like an allergy to a part of yourself the doctor explains her knees are sneezing

  • Barnstormers by Malik Abduh

    “They used to say, ‘If we find a good Black player, we’ll sign him.’ They was lying.” —Cool Papa Bell They tell me Pop Pop was some ballplayer. Copper toned, tanned like the leather of his glove; squinting on a dirt mound under Virginia skies.

  • TWO POEMS by Traci Brimhall

    AFTER WAKING FROM A SEVEN-YEAR DREAM It comes in my sleep and then it comes up the river, a tiger shark with its young in its mouth all singing the same commandment—Thou shalt kiss thy mistress’ Song of Solomon thighs and belly and the star tattoo on her left areola.

  • THE KISS by Kurt Brown

                   for L.A. That kiss I failed to give you. How can you forgive me?

  • COULD BE WORSE by Scott Nadelson

    For a week in the middle of March, Paul Haberman felt increasingly out of sorts. Not much appetite, lousy sleep. In meetings he’d find himself absently chewing a knuckle. When the phone rang after nine at night, he braced for calamity. The wind blew hard against his bedroom window, and he imagined his neighbor’s oak…

  • DEAN, ETC. by Laurie Stone

    Dean The first time with Dean, I was on a couch and he knelt beside me on the floor. He parted my lips with two fingers and slid them into my mouth. Something moved inside, a snake in a basket. He ran his fingers along the edges of my teeth and pushed them open. His…

  • RED MEAT AND BOOZE by Joseph D. Haske

    With every mile Johnny drives, Lester Cronin is closer to dead. Nobody knows this yet but me. Nobody ever talks about what happened to Grandpa Eddie anymore, like the whole family just forgot all about it. But I never will. The last four years, my whole time in the Army, I’ve been planning and working…

  • WHAT KEISHA DID by David Haynes

    That Janet Williams hadn’t liked children all that much she blamed on the boy’s mother. Children annoyed her, frankly—all that incessant energy, the enthusiasm for obnoxious music and inedible food, their general and relentless neediness. When pressed, however, she would admit there was something special about this one, this Danny, her five-year-old grandson. On that…

  • BLUE RIBBON by Mollie Ficek

    Cecelia stole it. It was my Sour Cream Raspberry Ripple Cake recipe and she walked away with the win. I normally wouldn’t make such a fuss. I’m not one to complain or point fingers. But in this case, I can’t keep quiet. I just can’t shut my big mouth. That blue ribbon means my winning…