VOLATILE SUBSTANCES by Olivia Wolford

by Olivia Wolford / Tuesday, 14 November 2023 / Published in ISSUE 28

These toys:
Stacked so short of the sky.

Horizon of thorns. Every cresting wave
The taunting laugh
Of the long game.

There are things only
Human hands are built for:
To screw, to unscrew.

Fingers in the saltwater
Scramble
Your second language,
Mistaking
Fish
For
Sin.

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About Olivia Wolford

Olivia Wolford is a writer and social scientist from Dallas, Texas. Her work has appeared in Flash Frog, and The Ekphrastic Review, where it was nominated and selected for the Best Microfiction 2022 anthology. She holds an MA in Applied Anthropology from the University of Maryland. She currently lives and works in Temuco, Chile.

ISSUE 28
POEMS

OF WINTER AND FIRE by Justin Hunt

DESIRE PATH by Matthew Carter Gellman

THE HISTORIAN’S SHADOW by Malvika Jolly

TWO POEMS by Maria Zoccola

THREE POEMS by deziree a. brown

DOWN IN THE CREVASSE OF LANGUAGE by Henk Roussouw

CHAGALL’S “THE POET WITH THE BIRDS” by Jessica Cuello

I AM AFRAID TO LOVE YOU LIKE MY MOTHER by Jenna Murray

NOUMENON by Cindy King

SHUSHI by Melanie Tafejian

VARIATIONS ON A THEME BY OVID by Daniella Toosie-Watson

THREE POEMS by Sébastien Luc Butler

VOLATILE SUBSTANCES by Olivia Wolford

ANNIVERSARY by Edward Salem

INTERVIEW

with Jared Harel

TRANSLATION

I WILL REMEMBER by Rahile Kamal trans. Munawwar Abdulla

MOTHER TONGUE by Adil Tuniyaz trans. Munawwar Abdulla

TWO POEMS by Beatriz Pérez Pereda trans. Colleen Noland

RADISH FLOWER by Jang Seoknam, trans. Paulette Guerin and Claire Su-Yeon Park

TWO POEMS by Stefano d’Arrigo trans. Joe Gross

TWO POEMS by Tomas Venclova trans. Rimas Uzgiris

THE PIER by Judita Vaičiūnaitė trans. Rimas Uzgiris

SONG FOR AMERICA by Jacques Viau Renaud trans. Ariel Francisco

ART

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