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Dearest Reader, The theme for the 2026 Spring Issue of Barely South Review is “Absence.” Absence from something lost, something ruined, something that exists only with a space between, or something that simply never was. It explores the chasm, the unknown, what’s been launched into the void. Enjoy, Evelyn Griffith Editor-in-Chief 8 8 POETRY Upon […]

Sympathy for the Repetition I just read your poem about blue moviesand train tracks. About westernsand beautiful singing women murdered.Everything is a dialogue with me lately.Everything is torturedor murmured.I am unable to be a little girl.I will never have days like you had.And yet I can behold thunder,calculate the deaths of former loversor the years

A river is a river is a street is a girl is a girl dead by the side of the road [you knowshe’s dead, have you ever seen anyone that shadeof blue and unblinking] and still you can’t pull overfor anything, for gas, for her because you don’twant to be the next girl-shaped object hazardingon

The Button From the cold concrete everything is far. The streetlights are stars of frigid light, globesempty as the fragile husks of people covered in trappings of black coat over black suit,each a thin layer when the wind threshes the crowd, sifting with ungentle hands hurriedly,leaving the chaff to float around these streets like plastic

How to Speak About Eggs 1. Not as if in prayer. Rather, in prayer. As if the court of appeals is backlit by your ferventyearning.2. Not as if they are already corpses. Rather, as if they are yet gurgling inside with some kind ofblueprint.3. Not as if they are stones. Rather, stoic as stones coining

Upon Departing “I think that perfect equilibrium was achievedduring the long era of dwelling in trees.”— Italo Calvino Someone else will turn this page you lefton the 6:30 train. Someone else will find itin the seat pocket, stuffed in with a trampledpaper cup and a torn-up receipt that wouldhave told you it was a London

Garbanzo Have you ever heard of Heather Ravken? The psychic? The one who told the world she could stop a train with her mind? Have you seen the video? I knew Heather from back when we were kids, back when the sun was so large in the sky you could almost lick it like a

The Rooster My mom bought five chicks from the local feed store when she moved into the house by the pond. My brother built her a chicken coop and painted it the same color as the house—driftwood gray with white trim. She fed the chicks compost every morning: coffee grounds, eggshells, apple cores, orange rinds.

After Stargazing in Texas (1938) There’s a painting I can’t stop thinking about. A woman stands tall and barefoot on a hilltop, farmland stretching behind her toward a treeless horizon. The woman gazes skyward, hands cupping the back of her head. To her left, two men, maybe boys, seem to have fallen. They flail on

Light Green Gum You remember how he arrived with a blue backpack and shoes that were too clean. How they squeaked on the linoleum. How your step mom said this is your new brother and your dad stood behind her, hands in his pockets, jingling keys like he was waiting for the meter to run out. How