By Steve Rubinstein The day we met it did not rain until we fell  into a rocking slumber side by side  her tent held to the metal deck with duct tape  mine blown off in Ketchikan  her lips so close I thought I heard her calling out  a name she swore she did not know.  From that day on I saw her shaped from water  eyes aglow with each dark cloud  spirit lifted, lit, reflected in each puddle   forming at her feet from falling rain  or so I would remember I believed   when I believed in truths  I believed in rain. 

By Jordan Hales When we’re apart, I keep you in my heart.  Haunting feelings of maroon, I hope to see you soon.  Our moments are loquacious, and I am no longer anxious.  I will welcome the December chill, and my happiness you will fulfill.  I long for you when you’re away, when you return, please tell me you’ll stay.  And stay. 

Dave Onofrychuk Twenty-some years ago, late at night on a secondary highway in the prairie, on my way to lawn-mowing gig at a Scout camp two hours north of home, a man flagged me down beside his car on the shoulder.  Could he get a ride? Pitch dark, no moon. His face, half shadow in the glow of my headlights. Me, nineteen years old.  “Sure,” I said. I dropped him off in town, a few miles up the road. Sometimes I look back on that and wonder how much there is to be afraid of. Sometimes I shake my head at myself and shudder. 

By Marty Grumblis Cicadas aren’t something you get to experience in Alaska. I spent many years being aware of their existence, but only recently did I travel to a state with large broods. The insects spend seven years underground, a private and dark existence. Then, they uproot their entire way of being. Growing tired of their miserable shells, they crawl from the dirt, they molt, and they scream. A cicada doesn’t live long after it emerges from the ground, only a few weeks to put on the show of a lifetime. Like a true artist, they refuse to let their misery go unheard. 

Marty Grumblis It takes around 4,000 newtons of force to break the human femur, or roughly 6,000 pounds of compressive pressure. The comeback is brutal, full recovery taking upwards of a year in some cases. A year wasted in the hospital for us in the 21st century, but sometimes I think about our late ancestors, skeletons with healed femurs. Their families and communities cared for them, hunted for them, made sure they were safe without any of our modern luxuries. The world has always been cruel and punishing, but humans have found a way to love each other enough to walk again.