about us | xml feed | Contrary ® is a registered trademark of Contrary Magazine | donate $1 | contact us

Sometimes, I place my hand upon her shoulder and leave it there. She likes that, she says. She feels gently pressed to earth, she says, quietly seated into place.

There is the moment I embrace her from behind, in a grocery store or a parking lot, arresting her forward motion for an instant, clasping my hands along her stomach and easing her back toward me until my breath settles at her neck.... MORE

REVIEWS

FICTION

Point Omega
by Don DeLillo
Reviewed by Frances Badgett

Love in Mid Air by Kim Wright
Reviewed by
Cynthia Newberry Martin

NON-FICTION

The Adderall Diaries by Steven Elliott
Reviewed by Thomas Larson

Changing My Mind by Zadie Smith
Reviewed by Harriett Green

POETRY

Petit Mal by John W. Sexton
Reviewed by Grace Wells

Congratulations

SHERMAN ALEXIE

2010 PEN/Faulkner Award

ABOVE THE ROOFTOP | STEVE MITCHELL

STORY WITH RED HEELS IN ITS MOUTH

ANNE MARIE ROONEY

I am in love with Grace Willentz. She is sitting under the tree and I am watching her sit. Grace points to boys and tells me to catch them and kiss them. I catch them and kiss them. I am in love with Grace’s hair, which is the color of yolk.... MORE

MY FLICKERING SELF

TANIA HERSHMAN

I stood under the street lamp, my flickering self lit up by doubt and lit up by the lamp and by the moon. I waited under that street lamp for you, all the while vibrations inside me filling me with questions. And you, where were you? Untethered, floating away, leaving me, a stranded star, to shimmer and blister on dark street corners alone.... MORE

BRUJERíA

A POEM BY

RAINA DE LEóN

LOVE POEM #39: Trying to Forget a Memory and Ending in a Smaller Town

JERRY BRUNOE

LETTER TO MYSELF, AGE 15

A POEM BY

JEAN YEOJIN SUNG

It was unusual to find her on the balcony the day she left, so early in the morning, still slumped into the baggy blue pajamas which always puddled at her feet. Her head was tilted toward a slab of spring sky between buildings, her arms clasped to her chest. It was strange to find her awake that early and outside; it was even more strange to find her still.

Elisabeth is nearly always spinning; invisible gears, their teeth enmeshed, quietly engaging other gears, or receding to a simple rotating stem, a separate axis buried deep. There are times you can see it in her hands, if you know how to look, hands haphazard upon the table except for a fine move-ment in the fingertips which might be mistaken for a tremor or the absent fondling of a piano.

MEREDITH MARTINEZ

WHEN I SAY LOVE

2010 Best of the Web Award

via Wolfpix