The Shallow Tales Review

(cover photograph direction: Victor Akhere) These waters could cure anything, I swear. Forget the world and its insistence to   conquer. Forget all those teeth. Forget the rejection that had…

(cover photograph direction: Tobi Amida) for Muyiwa In this solemn melody of the chapel choir, that carries the ghostly silhouette of his lover, who long passed on — his tears…

(cover photograph direction: Victor Akhere) Three hours after I cross the Atlantic, my sixty-year-old mother falls to her feet. A Good Samaritan dials the last number she called, but I…

(cover photograph direction: Victor Akhere) Beneath the tongue of silence. The heart’s attic collects dust of unsaid things,   And forgotten stars—light bleeding Into the margins of darkness. Poetry blooms…

(cover photograph direction: Victor Akhere) Death is a certainty, & Father’s death adds muscle to the conviction. Still, the thought of galloping into oblivion in the next seconds is a…

(cover photograph direction: Tobi Amida) Four Decades On Distant whirr swoop into my mouth and sits in my ears. It is midnight and the dark won’t stay dark, as glimmers…

(cover photograph direction: Tobi Amida)  Aubade in Udi Hills  For my grandma, Mary-Magdalene Chibuaku Ndiolo What is the cost of weaving agony into grace, of brailling pain into a hymn…

(cover photograph direction: Tobi Amida) Loss after Ted Kooser’s “After Years” That Eve, I saw you with him, & the yellowing leaves slowly dropping off the trees. From here, the…

(cover photograph direction: Tobi Amida) Bullet /ˈbʊl.ɪt/ ––noun A ball of lead or other metal, used in firearms of small calibre; now often conical. Typography. A printed symbol in the…