Letter from the Editor, by Erin Fitzgerald
Last year, Barrelhouse got to wondering: What would happen if a literary magazine said, instead of Send Us Your Best Work, Send Us Work You Love?
Office Ladies, by Clara Cristofaro
The office ladies have opinions. They’ve been here longer than you. They’ve worked in this office since you were in university, twenty years ago.
Body Oracle, by Kim Young
Maybe it’s not so bad to be promiscuous says my mom over Indian food that day we had lunch now that she’s 70 and her body has created phantom pain.
Maiden’s Last Cream, by Caroll Sun Yang
Niggling. Is the feeling, the right word. The sensation is Belladonna Blue. Like a Ford Falcon tilting on a muted roadside, dusky Oleander petals slide across the dash, one she loves me/ two she loves me still.
The Hardest Thing in this World is to Live In It, by Gaynor Jones
So then Marcia peels back her collar to show us the two white marks on her neck, like we haven’t seen them every year, these two faded knots in a parallel line glaring out from her store-bought tan and as she strokes them
How to Salvage Cracked Eggs, by Matt Muilenburg
No, you don’t sound like a pedophile, silly. You’re a man of God playing Yahweh's Greatest Hits, from Genesis to Golgotha. The parents at the park trust you for this reason alone.
I fall asleep waiting for a call from the tribunal waiting for the elders to get here with their sacrificial blade I fall asleep before I die I want more dreams, by Danielle Pafunda
unbleached demeters stand in line and I'm beside a demeter loudly sobbing she says: each day this belief must contain / us / a we that's made of previously whole persons the mythology that there are previously / whole people
Skin Palace, by Justin Greene
You go to shake my hand but you don’t because I’ve bled. My nails are dark in random corners but they are not random, these corners, the state of things. I am meticulous. I
Portrait of my Mother as Disembodied Feet Washing up on the Shores of Western Canada, as Reported by CNN, by Sarah Shotland
The feet,
though they disturb some of the local residents,
are immaculately manicured.
Other Girls, by Caroljean Gavin
I’m not like the other girls. The other girls know things I don’t know. The other girls know the rules.
The Fisherman’s Folly, by Jim Ruland
One night before the fisherman went to sleep he removed his wedding ring and placed it on the nightstand. The next morning his wife was gone.