Freckle Inventory
By Anslee WolfeFreckles scatter across his face, neck, arms. They hide beneath clothing. A large one dots his ear. Five pepper his cheek.
When your son, who hates everything, who even hates playing sports,
By Amy R. Martin... asks to play Ultimate Frisbee, you drive him—begrudgingly—to practice. The field is green, squelchy from morning rain. The sky like a Dutch cloud painting.
Photo Story: The Red Shoes
By Karen CrawfordNone of the passengers notice his glare. The lock in his gait, the crush of shoulders, hemming you in.
Coffee Drinks
By Cynthia BelmontoTwenty-two, I was with my first lover, not college-girl exploring but the real deal.
Book Review: The House of Grana Padano
By Celia BlandIn The House of Grana Padano, the collaboration between Meg Pokrass and Jeff Friedman blends rhythms and styles seamlessly. These two masters of the microfiction form generate a dialectic that plays within the rigorous requirements of their chosen genre.
Photo Story: The Other Side
By India KeaShe arrived with clenched fists, wide eyes, and strong lungs. During the cleaning, the elders caught her stretching her neck, peering into the darkness of a near past.
Unused Magic
By Maureen McElyThere are wishes in my hair, constellations of fluff from dandelion ghosts my daughter blows in my direction.
Settling Into The Rest Home for Ragged Girls
By Anika CarpenterThe island’s breakers rattle windows. Filthy storm clouds snigger, ‘“the jetty is as brittle as your bones.”
I Wish I Could Tell My Dead Husband
By Jamy BondThat I stole his Percocet stash and then helped him look for it. That I found his suicide note tucked inside his dog-eared copy of Infinite Jest.
In the Psychiatric Emergency Room
By Yu LiYou make up reasons for skipping pills. You must lie because the robins are watching, rolling both paranoid eyeballs, their jaundiced bellies bulging...
Common Ground
By Sara Siddiqui ChansarkarMy name is Sara, I say. I’m from India. Never met an Indian with that name, they say. Is it short for something? No, that’s my first name. I say.
It’s Better This Way
By AJ AtwaterThe convertible black as night with straight-up fins and a grille like shark’s teeth comes to rest in the bar’s parking lot among long-bed pickups with pipes and lumber and paint-splattered extension ladders...
Photo Story: Arcana
By Robert KealEach card foretells a fresh doom. She lays them side by side, three perfect slabs, her bridge towards the truth.
