Issue II
August 2016
From the Editor
I’m listening to Beirut as the Pacific Starliner weaves through the tinder-dry California hills to the ocean. I journeyed to a friend’s house on the foggy Central Coast to finish Issue II of Bracken, and, between two-hour hikes into town to get coffee and excursions to see Hearst’s zebras wandering the cow pastures, finish it I did.
I am excited and relieved to present to you Issue II. Stirring, unusual, and mythical pieces await you just behind the cover—which I think you will find is a fitting mirror for the issue’s contents. We had solicited “Juliet” from Caren McCaleb for Issue I, but wound up keeping it for Issue II, perhaps foreseeing the diversity of what was to come. ... Read more.
Fiction
The Gardener and the King's Menagerie
by E. Lily Yu
A Man and a River
by Megan Tilley
Imago
by Erica Ruppert
Panorama
by Davis Oldham
Poetry
Prayer, Apostrophe // All Their Elegies
by Bryce Emley
Marginalia on Eiruvin 45b
by Bogi Takács
Nettles
by Lucia Cherciu
Approaching the Mountain
by Laurie Kolp