Hawaii Pacific Review

by hipacificreview | 10/11/2015 · 12:22 pm

Conceit

by Kate Peterson

If estrangement is an ongoing death
with no resolution, then what is living
with a man who strangles you with his eyes?
Do you not die every morning when the clouds
glow grey? You hear glass break in the sink,
his morning mantra of blood and fists,
and all you want is coffee—pleasure you can count on.
The shrink says it’s narcissism,
clinical, undeniable, and you should pack a bag,
bring the nest shaped chair if you must, but you must
run. You know this. Continue reading →

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Filed under Poetry

Tagged as Kate Peterson

by hipacificreview | 10/11/2015 · 11:52 am

Big Flat

by Roger Real Drouin

Solitudo County

Up here on big flat there’s only the low, constant hum of the compressors. And the wind rough against the truck, whipping against the rig. Oscar sips the last of the coffee from the thermos, and he thinks of his girls, warm inside far away, sound asleep.

He listens for the wolf, listens past the hemlock and cedar, but there is only the wind. Continue reading →

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Filed under Fiction

Tagged as flash fiction, Roger Real Drouin

by hipacificreview | 09/30/2015 · 3:22 pm

Going Back

by Grant Clauser

Going back to the wreckage
was, of course, a mistake,
like going back to revenge
or digging up the bones
of your childhood pet. Continue reading →

Small, Safe Places

by A. D. Ross

I can’t stop changing apartments. No matter how nice the view, I’m always tempted away by the promise of some impossible place fit for Plato’s perfect forms.

When I was eighteen, I signed my first lease, a twelve-month rental in Richmond, VA. Eager to live in one of the historic, decaying city apartments, I pushed the honey hair away from my eyes and signed over the next year of my life. The apartment was cheap and walking-distance from the university where I attended art school. I didn’t bother over flooring, window treatments, or updated kitchen appliances. All I cared about was surviving on my wage working at the University Community Center. When I saw the high ceilings, the rustic wooden floors, I signed the papers without regard for the neighborhood’s reputation. Located in a notoriously bad area, my section of the street was referred to by the locals as “hell block.” Continue reading →

La Pasajera (The Passenger)

by Carolyn Adams

The night I fell to earth,
I crashed through the sunset
and all its colors striped my skin.
Idiot birds, constantly circling,
crowned impossibly tall foliage.
The trees were animals,
their vulnerable chests
thrust forward. Continue reading →