the arrival: an introduction.

There is a metaphor in here somewhere, some kind of poetry to naming an online journal, Union Station. Back in the old days, we dreamt of the internet as more information superhighway than a shopping mall.  Its sprawling collection of wires, fiber optic cables propelling bits, kilobytes, megabytes of...

poem: Jeanann Verlee

a boy named Never my chest is a birdcage where two canaries perch, chirp, and preen their feathers today, a little boy came to my door I thought he was selling chocolate bars for class but he didn’t say a word, just pressed his tiny hand through my sternum, precise as a surgeon he pulled out one of the...

fiction: Shelly Oria

He licks the stamp, sex in his eyes. I turn away, backpack and everything. I am ready to leave, to face the street, woman about downtown once again. Sure, it will be dark soon. The post office will close its doors, the clerks will go home, cook plums to soften their children’s stomachs, change the bedroom linens in anticipation of the night to come. They will leave, and I will have missed my deadline. Still, I am willing.

the conversation: Jon Sands interviews Mahogany L. Browne

Conversation is the foundation of all relationships. It’s also a space that allows for the transfer between art and ideas. And in our highly connected world, that chance meeting, a mix of mystery and familiar can illuminate or unify us. It’s in that tradition that we present a regular series we like to...

poem: Mara Jebsen

(intuition, black rose) the city lay pressed together, steaming at the joints the city, a rosebud composed of metal, pressed together, steaming at joints, it wheels its rose-head, sucks in a cold night, thick night sucks in night like ink through a straw my city is a rose-bud all cold metal some nights i...

photo essay: Grace Kim

One Night Stand. I met these men one night at a bar in Homo Hill- the small street that is the center for the gay community in Seoul. They were friendly and engaged, sharing intimate stories and performing for the camera, but when I returned throughout the next few days I could not find most of them again,...

fiction: Stacia L. Brown

You named her: Rashida, after her father, in hopes that this would inspire him to linger. He said he liked the “Shhh!” in the middle: We’ll need that. You laughed, heartened. Maybe a namesake was all it took to tether him.

poem: Adam Falkner

Batman and Robin (Most Dangerous Game) Fulton. There is a boy that rides the G train with me every morning on my way to work. He totes alongside him a younger brother of maybe 7 years, whom he drags by his Batman backpack like a stubborn puppy throughout the car. They both wear marshmallow...

poem: Austin LaGrone

His Name Was Frank Each of the seven years and all the bad luck gathered around a little fire and talked about death’s appetites, fortitude, and worn-out disguises. “He’s like a tattie bogle screwing with the rooks,” one of them says, “Just look at him, blowing that crowslayer like a...

poem: David Ayllon

Most Likely to Succeed Dear David, Remember that week you went missing? I checked every empty parking lot for your silhouette. I cried for a whole day, until they pasted your face on every milk carton at the grocery store, the ends of your mouth pointed downwards, and I bought them all and held them like...

poem: Jared Singer

Reasons to Leave This City, And an Attempt to be Someone I’m Proud Of A man on the subway selling bootleg dvds says I am worse than the devil. At least he has the decency to show his horns I should be forced to wear my yarmulke. I am worse than the devil treat myself human like its an inborn right. I...

poem: Taylor Mali

After Hearing About Your Breast Cancer, My Ex-Father-in-Law Called Me To Ask If He Could Write You a Letter which seemed a strange question until you said it made perfect sense: He didn’t know where to begin and was half hoping you wouldn’t want to hear what he did not know how to say. TAYLOR...