Congratulations to two 2024 Best of the Net Finalists: Andreas Trolf’s “75 Simple Steps to Positive, Growing Change” and Catherine-Esther Cowie’s “Heirloom.”
We’re also excited to announce Anney Bolgiano’s “Junior Steaks” and Sihle Ntuli’s “Blues for King Kong” are included in the 2024 Best of the Net anthology!
All finalists and selections were originally featured in Aquifer: The Florida Review Online.
the soul tends to hide deep beneath the blues • & pain has chosen to call blues beautiful • & pain could not have seen things differently • when someone owns a thing we call it their possession • & yet what do we call it when some sinister spirit has entered them? • of curtains that are mostly drawn • of a blues felt more intimately with the eyes closed • slow song for a masochist • a gentle tapping of feet • bassist under collagen of bones • bassist of a chest-deep beating • & some no longer look their friends in the eyes • others have not noticed themselves becoming islands • sunlight as a clarity reflected by water • moonlight as uncertainty reflected by water • drown under sounds of a profound saxophone sorrow • soak in softening passages of pain moving through the body • a falsetto waters the seeds of anguish • protruding from the mouth • the roots of a soul reaching for light