by James Valvis
He never minded labor, only people,
the work easy, even when difficult,
when it murdered his back and eyes.
He understood pain, the private agony
of a dirty toilet, existentialism of mornings
pumping gas or grinding auto parts
so their welding no longer showed seams. Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
by Peter Obourn
We lived in a small town.
My dad had eight fingers.
My mother was beautiful.
My brother, Sam, was trying to figure out where dreams come from. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
by Sierra Jacob
you want to build a lei across the mountain / catalogue / want the deep wet / massive habitat loss: simply too daunting to tackle / fold the leeward grassland back to shade / if the prospect of extinction doesn’t concern people / upon rediscovery / Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
by Amita Murray
The hole is getting bigger. The root ball of the cabbage tree sits in a kink in the corner of the compound, waiting to be transplanted. But her husband is digging away, and her mother is watching, hands on hips, looking grim. Again and again the spade splices the loam. Again and again the soil spatters on the expanding mound of leftovers. Sweat streams down Ahiri’s face, and there are pools developing around her hip bones.
“I guess it’s my turn,” she says.
“I can finish it,” Jesse says.
“I’ll do it,” she says firmly. “Does it have to be bigger?”
“Twice the size of the root ball,” her mother says. Continue reading
Filed under Fiction
by Doug Ramspeck
Here where the years congeal inside the body,
I sleep, I wake, am ferried into the new world.
Nothing changes after always, the limbs of the plum
trees outside this window drooping so low they almost Continue reading
Filed under Poetry
Hawaii Pacific Review 