Centaur Lit

11/15/2025

“I imagined I’d shiver once more to the whispers of his fingers’ light strokes, like rustling silk, our torsos nudging then rubbing, never again do us part rising like birdsong from our long-parched throats.”
From "The Artist’s Wife Jumps Out the Window" by Mikki Aronoff
Read more at https://centaurlit.com/the-artists-wife-jumps-out-the-window-by-mikki-aronoff/
Art by Nayoun Kim, www.nayounkim.com, “The Centaur.”

11/02/2025

The fall 2025 issue of Centaur is live with writing by Mikki Aronoff, Christine H. Chen, Catherine Chiarella Domonkos, Jennifer Markert, Mandira Pattnaik, Beth Sherman, Sudha Subramanian, and Joel Tomfohr, and with art by Nayoun Kim, www.nayounkim.com, “The Centaur.”

Please read, enjoy, and share: https://centaurlit.com/

10/19/2025

“She has been drinking a cocktail of emotions as everything feels at once familiar and foreign—the affected voices on TV saying absurd things, the expectation that she should call an annoying acquaintance ‘uncle,’ the vague threat she feels of being ‘found out’ that she is holding a British passport.”
From “Fitting Room” by Jie Wang
Read more at https://centaurlit.com/fitting-room-by-jie-wang/

10/06/2025

“The widow’s eyes changed color like a chameleon, depending on her moods and what she wore, which was a thing I couldn’t get enough of. In the morning, they’d appear baby blue and naive—and in the late afternoon, wearing an orange silk scarf, they’d morph into a lurid emerald green. I could imagine her as a dangerously beautiful teenager, and I reached out my hand to her, wishing I had known her all my life.”
From “Color Permanence” by Meg Pokrass
Read at https://centaurlit.com/color-permanence-by-meg-pokrass/

09/24/2025

"In the overgrown field, I am lying in the wildflowers, cradled in Queen Anne’s Lace and honeysuckle, and asters and cornflowers, and looking up to the sky with the white fast clouds, and I feel the earth dance in a wild spin, and it makes me dizzy..."

From "Whiskey Mash" by Rina Palumbo

Read at https://centaurlit.com/whiskey-mash-by-rina-palumbo/

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/