Centaur Lit

09/18/2025

"The thing about trauma is that it repeats. In a world of lines, it’s a whorl."
From "(again)" by Kim Magowan
Read at https://centaurlit.com/again-by-kim-magowan/

09/08/2025

"Through the smudged pane, I look up the street. Their house is lit up, like a party’s just about to start, each window some kind of celebration. The streetlamp cones a lone basketball on their cracked driveway, his azaleas and roses, ever pruned and symmetrical, stand guard by the front porch light."
From "It could be" by John Jordan
Read at https://centaurlit.com/it-could-be-by-john-jordan/

08/29/2025

"He tried to take in all he could in these moments, since she could not—a penance. Despite its cruelty, the world can be incredible. She spoke like that, because fire did not smolder directly below the surface of everything she did."

From "Monstrous" by Stephanie Frazee

Read at https://centaurlit.com/monstrous-by-stephanie-frazee/

08/26/2025

08/21/2025

"... we could see forever from our perch above the street vendors selling lángos, above the maze, the twisted wind of cobblestones, above the smog, we could see forever from the top of the city where we ducked under the canopies of almond trees, their nut-sweet blooms anointing us newlywed..."

From "We Don’t Meet in Buda" by Kelli Short Borges

Read at https://centaurlit.com/we-dont-meet-in-buda-by-kelli-short-borges/

08/01/2025

The summer issue is now live with art by Lorette C. Luzajic and writing by Kelli Short Borges, Stephanie Frazee, John Jordan, Kim Magowan, Rina Palumbo, Meg Pokrass, and Jie Wang. Site design and maintenance by Adam Robinson.

https://centaurlit.com/

07/25/2025

"We must have filled the space we’d created for the passage of the body, unmade the narrow aisle. We must have filed in, taken seats in the bleachers. There must have been lions and tigers and fiery rings, elephant tricks, and shimmering women leaping."

Read "Circus" by Dawn Raffel

https://centaurlit.com/circus-by-dawn-raffel/

07/19/2025

"I step into a carcass of memory, checking into a hotel she worked the night shift at when I was a child, a Holiday Inn next to the hospital, a place she labored while I slept in my cradle—and when I cry, I see her wiping down the bathroom sink with disinfectant soaked cloth, the sharp scent of bleach mingling with the Eagle oil on her skin, I see her count down until she’s home with us, I see a young woman, I see someone I never knew, I see a fiction."

Read "Watching Your Mother Die" by Hien Nguyen

https://centaurlit.com/watching-your-mother-die-by-hien-nguyen/

07/12/2025

"Your saviors have a five year plan and a thirty year mortgage all thought out for you.

Eyes as blue as o***m poppies harvested by orphans in authentic traditional costumes.

Goods and services in the service of the greater good. In the service of saviors better and greater than you."

Read "Imperial March" by Amit Majmudar

https://centaurlit.com/imperial-march-by-amit-majmudar/

06/29/2025

Congratulations to Centaur contributor Colette Parris for making Wigleaf's 2025 short list and to contributors Ulrica Hume, Kathryn Kulpa, and Sumitra Singam for inclusion in the long list! Hooray!

https://wigleaf.com/

06/26/2025

"He has laid out a dress like a deflated ghost, small cities of antique perfumes, as if to trick back time, as if to bring her back warm and breathing to this room."

Read "The Projection" by Ryan Griffith

https://centaurlit.com/the-projection-by-ryan-griffith/

06/20/2025

"I wonder where Layla is. If someone is gifting her watermelon, her licking from their fingers. If she’s doing zoomies in a sunflower field under an eclipse. If she’s waking someone’s monster. Smelling turpentine, if she’s planning on returning. I prepare an homage to all the lost dogs."

Read "Smiley" by Kim Chinquee
https://centaurlit.com/smiley-by-kim-chinquee/