By Kevin Grauke
Featured Art: “Tunnel” by Jean Wolff

I’ll eventually be nothing but a name on a headstone  
to be mispronounced by a goth couple making out 
on a funereal tryst in a moonlit cemetery—unless,  
that is, I choose fire over dirt, ash over black humus. 
                                                         ↑
Are you like me? Do you stumble on this word ↑, too, 
wanting always to pronounce it like the pureed paste  
of chickpeas? Good! I’m glad to hear I’m not alone. 
And thank you for being honest. So many would lie, 

afraid to ever seem even slightly less than better than.      
I hate people like this, so insecure they have to claim  

to know what they don’t, like the meaning of miserere  
during Quizzo, thus losing our team the brew pub title.  
But I stay quiet, knowing they’ll remind me how auto- 
correct always knows to change my name to Grouchy. 

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Kevin Grauke has published poems in The Threepenny Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Minnesota Review, Ninth Letter, and The Louisville Review, amongst others. He is the author of the short-story collections Shadows of Men and West of Destry, and a third short-story collection, Bullies & Cowards, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in late 2026. He teaches at La Salle University and lives in Philadelphia.