Teo Do Rio Softening by Olivia Braley, ELJ Editions, Magpie Series, 2021 Reviewed by Scott Neuffer Not sure why I’m getting déjà vu writing this review right now, but the feeling is strong. Maybe because Olivia Braley’s Softening , her debut prose chapbook, has universal appeal. Maybe it gets there through steady illumination of a particular pain, the hallmark of a great writer. At twenty pages, Softening is short but impactful, a series of crystalline vignettes written in

by Olivia Braley Gabriel Jimenez After the boy who thought himself a man crept inside the room where I slept —  shrouded in moonlight that came through a window with broken blinds —  decided to disregard the whisky on my breath as I told him no, I held a funeral for what was once my body, dug a shallow patch in the side yard, disposed of the girl wearing soiled clothes: the bruise-blue shirt used only once, a pair of gray jeans with a split in the left knee running seam to se