Special Issue: Horo-Flash
Leo: Lions by Emma Kernahan

They decided, in the end, to dress as lions. The Government guidelines had been very specific about wearing animal pelts to avoid infection, but Josh was chair of the local wildlife trust, so they compromised and used the costumes from a recent production of Cats the musical.

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Leo: Regulus by Emjay Holmes

Lily rubbed the fibres between her fingers, coarse like coir or horsehair. She flipped Ed’s recliner on its side. It sagged, not surprising the months he’d slept there, the stairs impossible. When the pain kept him awake, he’d sit, picking out constellations through his telescope.

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Leo: Natural Born Killers by Anita Arlov

The light’s hinged. You missed three texts last night. “It’s a salmon dawn,” you whisper, leaning close to wet-wipe Leonie’s chin. She stirs, sleep mucus pearling in the corners of her eyes.

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Cancer: Crabbing by Batnadiv HaKarmi

When my sister painted her bedroom dark purple, and marked off the Cancer constellation in glow-in-the-dark puff paint, my mother barely blinked. “She’s working out her interests,” she said. She sounded proud.

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Cancer: dolphin love & Crab Pot by Len Kuntz

i lose you in winter melon soup under a broth of cloud cover ginger slices floating where your eyes once did no chance for extradition the weight of absence and imbalance prepping a slow fade to nowhere i find a hairline fracture in the china resembling lost nerve my spoon clanging like a warped church bell

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Cancer: Crab by Luke Rolfes

She clapped her hands and said “I’m supposed to love Cancers,” when she found out his birthday. Her name was Bobbi. Even though he went by Robert, she insisted they be known as the Bobbies. Her favorite restaurant was Red Lobster—imagine that.

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Gemini: Purr by Charmaine Wilkerson

Absurd, my boyfriend said, when I blamed the cat’s flip-flop behavior on its astrological sign, the pulsing flick of its tail twisting around my shins one moment, a sudden hiss and flight towards the hallway, the next.

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Taurus: Running With The Bulls by Sarah Salway

It was the astrologers who benefited the most when Government decided to cancel April and May. Everyone had agreed that something needed to be done as a result of the climate emergency, but as we struggled for survival, our birth signs had increasingly become our tribes.

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Taurus: Bull and Trout by Patricia Bidar

My wife Maya and I agree on all the big issues. Recycling. Food. Films. Politics, local and global. I don’t touch her neck. She doesn’t muss my thinning hair. Maya’s a Taurus. Inside of her dwells a bull, slow breathing and warm. I am Pisces, the fish.

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Aries: Big Dick Energy by Ken Elkes

At the Big Dick Energy workshop, Alpha Ram yells “exude horns!” right into your ear. You respond “I am the ram” and buck your hips as you’ve been taught, though you’re pretty sure his spittle went right down your ear canal.

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Grief Sandwiches by Lucas Flatt and Travis Flatt

I’m in the elevator with the angel.
“I’m hungry,” I say.
“You can eat peanut butter again.”
My mother hated the smell of peanut butter. As kids, my brother and I got it all over everything. Mom said it smelled to her like dogshit.

Mom’s new boyfriend is a liver fluke by Cole Beauchamp

He attached quickly (can I buy you a drink, let’s hook up, sure I’ll meet your kid), slid into our house unnoticed (toothbrush here, pair of socks there) and two months on, here we are, host and Fasiola Herpatica.

The Bronze Medal by Vincent James Perrone

She wants to meet the pig—snout down, paraded through the town square of sodden earth and
stump dimples, now trailed by serpentine line of freshly showered farmer with tomato noses and
breath prematurely soured from all that auctioneer talk.

The Subtle Light by Hetty Mosforth

Word of mouth gets him the job and gets him past the gatehouse. He tramps towards the house like a stray dog, turrets and crenelations coming into focus.

Blue-naped Parrots See More Than They Say by Judy Darley

I date Brodie while I’m visiting Seattle. He shares a draughty old house with a bunch of roommates, including a blue-naped parrot who lives in a big cage looking out at a treehouse.