Wreckage of Once Was
Volume 26 (2023-2024)
ISSN 1520-4583
ISBN 978-1-934458-13-6
Design/Photography Curation by Parker Sprout and Logan Myers
Cover photograph Las Vegas, 2015, by Aaron Wojack
Copyedited and proofread by Anne Kelley Conklin
$5.00
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Wreckage of Once Was
Volume 26 (2023-2024)
Editors
Meghan Maloney-Vinz (Executive), Jenn Sisko (Managing), Juliet Patterson (Contributing, Creative Nonfiction), January Gill O’Neil (Contributing, Poetry), Libby Flores (Contributing, Fiction)
Associate Editors
Zoey Gulden
Mubanga Kalimamukwento
Larissa Larson
Assistant Editors
Rachel Guvenc
Deidra Purvis
M.L. Schultz
With gratitude to the students of the Editorial Board
CONTENTS:
FICTION
The Sergeant’s Daughter ERNIE REYNOLDS
Pennies Only KATIE YEE
The Math DANIELLE LAZARIN
Tell Us Your Qualifications MEGHAN GILLISS
A Hypothetical Scenario in Which Every Man I’ve Ever Masturbated to Is at a Cocktail Hour Hosted by My Mother at a Bar That Transcends Space & Time VIVIAN HOLLAND
Love A. K. HERMAN
Lies on the Lips DANIELLE DECATUR
A Breath Held Too Long MANUEL GONZALES
POETRY
Daybreak Comes and I Offer Light REBECCA JOHNSON
Divination ELISE PASCHEN
Cosmic Mother Cento SU HWANG
Deposition: What Was Lost TODD DAVIS
Glassful of Prayer ANTHONY CEBALLOS
Retching A. E. WYNTER
Now & Later A. E. WYNTER
Learning to Live with A Clockwork Orange JC TALAMANTEZ
River Phoenix at 46 TERI ELLEN CROSS DAVIS
The Brain Confesses about Those Six Weeks TERI ELLEN CROSS DAVIS
run dheer ISRA HASSAN
The Hunter JENNIFER MARTELLI
Reading Alone in a Square Room JENIFER BROWNE LAWRENCE
wearing a dress for the first time luna rey hall
Collapse KATHLEEN DRISKELL
Ode to That Turquois Bra DeMISTY D. BELLINGER
Mirror MARIE-ELIZABETH MALI
Weeding/Wedding JOSEPH O. LEGASPI
Song of Solomon J. D. DEBRIS
Perfection™ C ATHERINE PIERCE
I Wonder if the Guy Who Catcalled Me in the Blockbuster Parking Lot When I Was 15 Ever Thinks About That CATHERINE PIERCE
On the Third Stanza of a Poem by F. S. Key DAN ALBERGOTTI
Standard of the Wild Hunt HANS BECKER
Blue Aster Seeds ROBERT GRUNST
Abecedarian: a lost love poem JP HOWARD
Praise Poem for the Quiet JP HOWARD
CREATIVE NON-FICTION
Reading the Deck with Zora Neale Hurston TERESA CARMODY
Only Matter RYAN HABERMEYER
Abscission MICHAEL LEVY
An Island Still Dry CHRIS SANTIAGO
Not So Soft JAX CONNELLY
The Excavator SHANE SEELY
Flip and Flop MATTHEW HARKINS
Canoe KATHRYN GANFIELD
INTERVIEW
With Ru Freeman MUBANGA KALIMAMUKWENTO and SHEILA O’CONNOR
BOOK REVIEWS
Circuits: Poetry Future, Poetry Now STAN SANVEL RUBIN
Writing Through Erasure: The Mother in the Memoir ROBYN EARHART