Top-Shelf features poems, stories, artwork, and photography that refuse to let go. Work you carry off the page and into your mind, your heart, your chest. Work that stays with you all day and draws you back to the page again and again. Fresh work arrives here year-round, between issues.
- Rain by Sarah Das Gupta
RainMonsoon rain, drumming on the roof.What defense against a watery siege?The first invasion, a sudden gush,under the door exploratory fingers feelstealthily… Read more: Rain by Sarah Das Gupta - Going Home by Gregory Smith
Going Home Edgar was having a rough weekend. Stuck in bed with a respiratory infection, his niece did not visit, and,… Read more: Going Home by Gregory Smith - The Call by Spencer Gallup
The Call (after Fate of Ophelia – Taylor Swift) The loud clap of thunder, woke me up, I felt my head spin… Read more: The Call by Spencer Gallup - A World of Wonder by James C. Clar
The road wound through the dry plain, empty beneath the bleaching afternoon sun. The melancholy knight reined in his horse. “There,”… Read more: A World of Wonder by James C. Clar - Number 6 by Kevin Ramsden
“A racehorse is an animal that can take several thousand people for a ride at the same time.” (anon) Many citizens… Read more: Number 6 by Kevin Ramsden - Far From Home by Gregory Ramírez
Tonight’s drive back northFrom Southern California findsThe red that trailed the sunsetNow in the taillights ofBig rigs into which I stare.… Read more: Far From Home by Gregory Ramírez - Lamprey by Chris Dungey
The best place to have adventures was at Will Woolman’s house. The boys had just finished 6th grade, and… Read more: Lamprey by Chris Dungey - The Jazz You Cannot Listen with Your Body Whole by Philip Chijioke Abonyi
In the afternoon of April 2026, the sun suffers cataractin Benue state. the world is not seeing, her eyeball fullof gunshots… Read more: The Jazz You Cannot Listen with Your Body Whole by Philip Chijioke Abonyi - MERRIAM-WEBSTER by Louis Faber
As a young child I learned my grandmother never had a dictionary - On the Streetcar by Jeffrey Zable
I sat down next to a disheveled looking homeless guy—two empty seats to his right and one to my left—and it… Read more: On the Streetcar by Jeffrey Zable