Summer’s coming. Get out a beach chair, even if you’re not at the beach. Put it in the middle of your living room. Make some summery whiskey drinks. Blow up a beach ball. Relax. Take in some Friday Rex for your recommended reads.

iO Issue 12 is out. There’s Christine Shan Shan Hou’s TO THE WICKED KEEP FAR AWAY:

Where a worm curls into a feeding position and stays there
I let my body wash beads drain into the ocean breeding toxic roe

Also in the issue is Hannah Stephenson’s FAIRY TALE:

Chris Terry has REAL SKATER MUSIC up over at Hobart, which we think is pretty magical:

This is the first Christmas where there are no surprise gifts. Sit on the couch, skateboard scuffing slippers. Roll across the flat part of the street. Rear foot slaps the tail to the ground, front foot slides up, board see-saws into the air: suburbs get shorter.

 Sadie Dupuis has some excellent poems at Everyday Genius. Here’s part of THE SHADOW ON THE MOON:

I have to say I feel the rabbit head and empty in the beginning of the month. They make jumps and expect me to jump after. I have never even studied them closely. I have never put my face very close to anything and looked. There are woods from which even I am excluded.

Mary-Kim Arnold (Issue Four contributor) has a new story in the new issue of Swarm — THEN, QUICKLY:

How would I know if I were bewitched? Would it start with pain in my stomach, like I swallowed something hard and sour? Or with white light behind my eyes, a throbbing?

In the new Brevity, there’s OVERPASS INTO FOG by Steven Church. The language twists and winds and keeps hold–this essay is a must-read.

The new Banango Street features poets covering poets. Here’s Katie Moulton covering SDL favorite Traci Brimhall with WHAT WE GAVE THE FLOOD.

That’s a bunch of goodness for this week, friends. See ya in 7.