The Broadkill Review
@thebroadkillreview.bsky.social
ISSN:1935-0538.CLMP. broadkillreview.com We are a small staff of volunteers. Submissions open July 2026. Work published here has appeared in The Best of the Net, on NPR's Prairie Home Companion, and NPR affiliates, and reprinted in anthologies.
"You’re the side that enters The throat, the bed of the mouth. Take As long as you need. There’s sleep in the Back on the edge of the knife..." Gabriella Kamran
"Slice" by Gabriella Kamran
The palm and the fist and the knife in theFist of the hand. You’re the side that entersThe throat, the bed of the mouth. TakeAs long as you need. There’s sleep in theBack on the edge of the knife.…
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"Remember how you used to say “Hit me” when you knew you’d done something wrong? You’d flex your stomach so, you said, it wouldn’t hurt..." Nadia Kalman
"The Problem With Becoming A Bear" by Nadia Kalman
You have to first take out your gutsso that it has a place to goBut then, what happens if it doesn’t grow?The bear gets stuck at cubthe hollow stays,the bear claws air.Remember how you used to say…
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"I wrote a poem about my mother... about the chasm between us, and my futile attempts to connect with her. My writing group said it was too short. They wanted me to fill empty spaces, expand emotions, include more... I wanted to bang my head on the table. Elissa Matthews
"Halfway" by Elissa Matthews
I wrote a poem about my mother—more specifically, about the chasm between us, andmy futile attempts to connect with her. My writing group said it was too short. They wanted meto fill the empty…
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"Tangled knees dizzy me past the dunes, sharp grasses whistle cuts into my sand-blasted calves. I’m burning skin for paper things out here..." Leelah Holmes
"Chase The Thought" by Leelah Holmes
Tangled knees dizzy mepast the dunes, sharp grasses whistlecuts into my sand-blasted calves.I’m burning skin for paper things out here,flicking sand after copper shavings.Monarchs open & close their…
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"What’s that buzz as if paper being cut when I exit the house to fetch some lunch? I look up to spot a dragonfly winging against the wood-topped carport. " GH Mosson
"At Lunch I Freed A Dragonfly" by G.H. Mosson
What’s that buzz as if paper being cutwhen I exit the house to fetch some lunch?I look up to spot a dragonflywinging against the wood-topped carport.I reach for my rake, with plastic tongs,to nudge…
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"In the dream / I’m all hallways / windows where the doors should be / behind distorted glass / memories / all my shit / got miscoded / strobe light nervous system / blinking Christmas light " response Alannah Hensley
"The Body Is A Temporary Dwelling" by Alannah Hensley
In the dream / I’m all hallways / windows where the doors should be / behind distorted glass /memories / all my shit / got miscoded / strobe light nervous system / blinking Christmas lightresponse /…
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"Someone tells her her son now has a daughter of his own, a two-year-old, but no one brings her to visit grandmother. She has no girl to inherit her rings one day. What did he name her, she wonders. " Zehra Habib
"Estrangement" by Zehra Habib
I. A woman sharpens a knife along the bottom of a mug, then pares away the hard brown root beneath an onion. She thinks of when her son first began to toddle and discovered the kitchen. He opened…
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"....we could have yelled our love as cheers circling the stadium. Ribboned new relationship...." Chidiebube onye Okohia
"What Could Have Been in Anfield" by Chidiebube onye Okohia
we could have yelled our love as cheerscircling the stadium. Ribbonednew relationship. Our energiesfollowing each player to the Kop end.and we could have binged highlightsof what-a-great-chancethat…
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"God was a sonnet you could stumble into, or how enlightenment was the volta neither of us was prepared for? " --Adam Gianforcaro
Two poems by Adam Gianforcaro
Abecedarian as Ars Poetica Already this feels too much. The way a line can break anywhere. Here even, if we aren’t careful. Too often I’m caught off guard, havingdropped suddenly from the place I was…
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"This could’ve been avoided. But it grew and grew until nothing grew but flames." basil payne
"Soon, Almost Anything Will Seem True" basil payne
—which is why I keep quiet.The small forest where I growwhat should happen, whichis really just what I wantto happen. Like anything,this could burn, too. ⯀ I watcheda documentary about…
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Congrats to our Best Of The Net Nominations 2027! 1/2 Prose David Bankson “gone” Chris Cottom “Afterwards, Gretel Calls It God's Way of Telling Her to Be an Architect"
"We expected him to get his gun... Instead, he took the stick from my hands, the one I'd picked up as I ran to find him. My sister and I statued at the barn door, unwilling to go further. We could hear the animal screams.... Courtney LeBlanc www.broadkillreview.com/post/my-husb...
"My Husband Asks" by Courtney LeBlanc
MY HUSBAND ASKS~ after Todd Dillardhow do you write a poem? and I hand him a stick.His eyes ask the question. It's a poem, I say and suddenlythe air smells like straw and manure, earth and animal.My…
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"Each night the moon-dish splits open like a honeydew its starry lake on a floating branch. " Grace Lynn www.broadkillreview.com/post/negativ...
"I wonder about the meaning of time, about disappearing fragments. To our right is a fortune teller with old hands. I wonder if she knows I wore blue tonight to hear you say I look beautiful, so I can believe in the future." Natalie Marino www.broadkillreview.com/post/a-love-...
"A Love Story" by Natalie Marino
While on an evening walk, we see two dogs mating in an abandoned lot full of tall grass.Holding your hand in mine I look up at the moon looking like a coin caught between two cypresstrees. I wonder…
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" Suddenly, sweat becomes many layers of tongs. Sparrows are stones, and you, a grain. I had gone numb with fear. I was going numb." by Ioana Nicolaie translated by Clara Burghelea
"The Insight" by Ioana Nicolaie translated by Clara Burghelea
I wasn’t a girl back then. I was wearing nylon dresses with clay sleeves. I was wearing heels and bracelets made of muddy pretzels. Back then, only mothers delivered babies. I wasn’t a girl back…
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We will open for submissions on July 30. (We had planned for today, but we had to change plans)
"Wishes on an eyelash, the train-track, the clover, the clock saying 11:11. I am plural, I am they, since 2009, no singular, here. Someday we women may stop apologizing. " Lara Payne
Two by Lara Payne
Breath and RemedyWell-wishes at the opening of the day. Good, have a good.. .have you any sugar, please. Pleas to the sky, thegod. Wishes on an eyelash, the train-track, the clover, the clock saying…
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"midnight, how your moon-sickle slouches hooks sleep, seas–– carrying witches & dreams. i mimic it" Witching Hour by Tafara Gava
"Witching Hour" by Tafara Gava
midnight,how your moon-sicklesloucheshooks sleep, seas––carrying witches & dreams.i mimic it,sprawling myself like okavangoi mimic the waningthe waning,the witching of it all.after allwhat saint…
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"It’s true that at its best the thrum goes sugarwater sweet; I reduced from hypochondriac fractal to taut and trembling string. A vamp kid whose hurricane capacity to be still in the thick of it ..." by Klara Pokrzywa
"pit hymnal" by Klara Pokrzywa
Star of this soreness I laugh myself awake, sling deepinto the heave. Straight out of dirt road walking and at capacity—this beingthe back-alley way; the heartbreak; the runningaway…
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"Our father...out on the porch with a slingshot, methodically knocking down any bird unlucky enough to land in our sycamore. When he died, he left everything ...to a single sparrow... "Three stories of two fathers and one death" by Daniel Findlay
"Three Stories of Two Fathers and One Death" by Daniel Findlay
I.Our father was a tall man, a gaunt man, would hit like airplane whiskey, in the snowfields of theheart was supremely treacherous and knowledgeable in all things avalanche. One day up at theglass…
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"there’s a small duck i’ve been waiting for. i tell the duck my name, who i am. it probably doesn’t remember, but that’s fine. " Paul Potts "Grass Grows Over A Daisy Petal"
"Grass Grows Over A Daisy Petal" by Paul Potts
beyond the trees as far as i can seethere’s a small duck i’ve beenwaiting for. i tell the duck my name,who i am. it probably doesn’tremember, but that’s fine. i remindmyself that when you find…
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"It’s sunny and there’s screaming. " two poems by Rebecca Ferlotti
two poems by Rebecca Ferlotti
Out the second story window,I see daffodilsand dog shit. It’s sunnyand there’s screaming. I cranemy neck and noticeher beat-up deck chairunravelingRebecca Ferlotti (she/her) is a writer, poetry…
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"...since the crabs took over. Waiting at the bar for a table was not the same experience: with the bartender scuttling sideways along the bar top, using leverage and small bottles to spindle the drinks. Do I tip a crab...? "Ken Poyer
"Unease" by Ken Poyer
I have only been to the seafood restaurant once since the crabs took over. Waiting at the bar fora table was not the same experience: with the bartender scuttling sideways along the bar top,using…
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Alexa...a woman's name; why doesn't that surprise her? The robot replies obligingly; it carries out routine home tasks...so natural that it will no longer be noticed. "Laughter" by Anna Gáspár-Singer trans from Hungarian by Marietta Morry & Walter Burgess www.broadkillreview.com/post/laughte...
"Laughter" by Anna Gáspár-Singer translated from the Hungarian by Marietta Morry & Walter Burgess
Translators’ Note: the words in italics are in English in the original. Zugló is a suburb of Budapest. She was standing by the philodendron, watching the apparatus make one last click. For days she…
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"Hear the bee. Hear the clavichord. Hear the split / lemon of the heart. How? Hunger for sour juice, / soft seeds chewed to bitterness, the heart a relic / of what once got said, of what once said something / about what skin did to skin. " John Repp
"Hear The Bee" by John Repp
Hear the bee. Hear the clavichord. Hear the splitlemon of the heart. How? Hunger for sour juice,soft seeds chewed to bitterness, the heart a relicof what once got said, of what once said somethingabout...
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"Soon she’s building sturdy barns with dumpling mortar, merchants’ houses with pumpernickel shingles, hammerbeam roofs entirely of pastry. Czars and princes commission pink meringue palaces for their courtesans...." Chris Cottom
"Afterwards, Gretel Calls It God’s Way of Telling Her to Be an Architect" by Chris Cottom
I fetch her the toy bricks Father made from a fallen hornbeam, but she rolls her eyes, hands mea slice of castellated krustenbrot, sends me to town for a bushel of ginger. She bakes modelcottages…
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"My lover is a television playing fuzz on a loop. I am a remote. We don’t know if I am a broken remote or if he is a broken television. " "My lover is a television" by Olivia G Rose
Two poems by Olivia G. Rose
My lover is a televisionMy lover is a television playing fuzz on a loop. I am a remote. We don’t know if I am a broken remote orif he is a broken television. We don’t know if my batteries are dead or…
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"I almost lose it, in the gym with all the nude bodies that make me love my own despite its lumpiness—your ring. A silver twining around my finger, a silver lining on my worst days. Twisted like DNA, my past & future." Ode to My Best Friend by Sophia Carroll
"Ode to My Best Friend" by Sophia Carroll
after Lucille CliftonI almost lose it, in the gym with all the nude bodies that make me love my own despite itslumpiness—your ring. A silver twining around my finger, a silver lining on my worst…
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