Bellingham Review Archives
by Bailey Cunningham Inspired by “The Domestic Apologies” by Dustin Parsons in Brevity Goodbye to Stars You are greedy, eating up elements like an all-you-can-eat buffet. You convert hydrogen and helium and carbon into radiance so startling it inspires religions. When these atomic brews dry up, you stretch out into the cosmos, turning red like …
When you look at a bear, when you see the wrinkles behind his eyes, the slick of his parted hair, he becomes more flesh and bone, less fur or foot. He will become real to you—something that can’t be described in a guidebook—just as you become real to him.
by Mike Oliphant 05.07.06: The child folds her hands together, saying what sheknows of grace. First bite of meat, her teeth clackcutlery—the new word like iron on her tongue. 01.13.06: Even the dashboard flickers in this cold, mother whispers.When the child breathes on the window, the glass revealsthe fact of air with its best impression …
by Alyssa Quinn During her pregnancy, Inez reads Lacan. She reads it at home, in an armchair by the window. Rain spits against the glass and the apartment blues with shadow. Lacan says, The mirror supplies an imaginary wholeness to the experience of the fragmentary real. In the window, her reflection stares back at her—bleached, …
by Dayna Patterson the Nurse cursed inthe pantry, and every thing in extremity—Romeo and Juliet Put away a moment the daggerand poisoned lips. Put away the needlesthreaded with blood. Put away the swordand flame thrower and bowl of splendidfighting fish waving their fins like flagsof surrender. Put away the vials of virus,blue-footed mushrooms, and sassy …
by Marley Simmons Abril After the bleak season I find spring again. It struggles upright through the sand, squeezes green from the trees. We walk the clattering beach in open air. A meager slope announces the final edge of a continent. How many thousands of miles behind us? Only six feet in front: the seam …
by Julia Hands The daughter finds a jar in the laundry closet as she puts away her soccer cleats. The glass is stained yellow with dust, the inside of the rim browned with rust-colored grime. She hides it under her coat when she goes outside, her parents not meeting eyes as they sit on opposite …
I realized just now how I’ve been rehashing the same concerns, making different attempts to answer the same questions, like I haven’t really evolved an expansive thematic range over the years.
Most of my essays, broadly speaking, deal with dancing between a need to know and the realization that I cannot truly know something beyond myself.