Category: Issue 18 – 2025
-
Resilience
by Sara Shea On I-26, heading into Asheville,a flatbed rolls beside me,stacked with husks of cars—mud-caked, mangled, dripping.One might’ve been a van, once,Hard to tell.Metal curled back on itself.Windshields blown inlike lungs collapsed. Seven months now since Helene. That blaze of neon orange—search and rescue spray-painttells the story, marking dayswhen the water rose. This load’s…
-
The Devil is in the Eggs
by Kathleen Julian While others in her family and among her friends agonized over what to bring to the next gathering, Jane relaxed. She’d been the designated Deviled Egg Queen for decades. Her main concerns now were when to buy the eggs so they’d be fresh but not too fresh. Whether to buy two dozen…
-
Sirens
by Dylan Hopper She found Cali standing barefoot on the landing of the rusted billboard again. This was their spot, overlooking a pond to the north and tall enough to peek over the trees that lined the highway to the south. She was a vibrant oddity against the double-sided, sun-blanched advertisement for Mac’s BBQ Farm.…
-
Plein Air on Widgeon Pointe
by Pell Williams I am no good at waking.Still, I borrow Momma’smud-worn shoesand sip hot paper cup coffeeas her van fills one by onewith artists of all mediums.I guard the van while they slipunder the Widgeon Point gate,the night’s bruise healing with light.I’m no good at sneakingthrough the young pine foreststo peek at the easels…
-
Charleston
by Todd Tremble Todd Larkin Tremble is a poet who frequently shifts between mediums. Born in New Jersey and raised in the Catskills, Todd enlisted in the Marines at seventeen and has since lived in many places. He is currently a first-year MFA candidate at the College of Charleston, where he also serves swamp pink…
-
La Jaliscience Taqueria
by Glenn Miles North Augusta, SC Patriotic buntingand tricolored tinsel decorhang from the ceilingand the black vents above; Green, then red,then shimmering whiteplastic against white ceiling.White against red clay-coloredplaster walls, Mother Maryin a framestrung with festiveLEDs, Other paintings too,of feather-capped warriorsand narrow villagestreets. I order Chile Coloradoin English,too uncertain to try outquiero or maybepido; afraid…
-
Charleston Miasma
by Gus Varallo in the dregs of sunset through my closed blinds,the dim light sneaking between folds, the glimmering dust because everything is shedding like the windshields in our driveways, blanketedby pollen, like the sea foam rolling against barrier islands, like chunksof ripped tackle washed away with the sand, like another flood,another hurricane, like the…
-
Off-Season at Edisto
by Ann Humphries I will arise and go to Edistoto a shabby-chic inn with rocking chairson a pastel porch with beachfront views,and morning espresso with fresh fruit and sconesand cheer on children cartwheeling on the beach,and, at sunset, I will bathe in turquoise air and plein-air paint the ravenous gullsstrafing the packed hulls of shrimp…
-
Weeping in My Potato Salad
By Amy Singleton The second time my mama had brain surgery, in the fall of 1989, her tumor had returned, resurrected from the dead. All it had needed to grow was one tiny, vicious, tumor seed left behind from the first surgery, tucked away in the folds of her brain, lying dormant and waiting to…
-
Shucked Calendar
by Kylie Harris thick gold hangs low against cerulean bluelight spills as day lingers soft and strongwarmth teases where winter still lingersin wind’s slow exhale scuffed corners on the cooler red and whitecradles last summer’s sandtucked into crannies where tide couldn’t reacholder than remembered photograph kissed by suncolors bleached edges softened by timeold stories drift…
The Petigru Review 