Post-It Mortem
By Dave DonovanLife got too complex for Dan. Job. Wife. Kids. Yard. So he bought a block of Post-It notes and found a calmess in the sticky squares...
Photo Story: A Hundred Different Kinds of Rain
By Karen WalkerLost rain wandering parking lots and highways in search of the earth. Down-on-its-luck rain watering plastic petunias on a twentieth-floor balcony.
Betty’s Begonia
By Sharon BoyleThey buried Betty between bomb raids in a no-fuss, grassy grave. Overnight the sod erupted with vagina-pink begonias.
Photo Story: The Cakes She Promised to Bake
By Mary AmatoMarjorie hadn’t noticed that one of the eggs was broken until she arrived home. Once, she had been the kind of person to check before purchasing.
Southern Discomforts
By Molly GilesDean’s wife was in one of her moods, she had a lot of moods, that girl, and she burst into the party baited for bear.
After attending an anti-war protest in Hyde Park
By Sam PayneA fatality on the line at Acton stops the trains leaving Paddington and we stare at the departure boards, eyes still stinging from the tear gas.
Out of Why
By Bryan StarchmanIt was Day 172 of sheltering in place and Karen was going to kill her family.
The week our landlord kicks us out
By Frankie McMillanNo rescue anywhere so we huddle around a fire under the railway bridge. Bennie says he knows where to score free chicken and he scrolls the Poultry Rehoming page.
In Case You Missed It
By Kim MagowanThere was a window when one could grocery shop without a mask. There was a window after my mother stopped chemo when she felt better, gained a few pounds. The color returned to her face.
Photo Story: Rigs Full O’ Pigs
By Lisa H. OwensThe squealing of hogs was enough to make his ears bleed. He’d driven all night … Rigs Full O’ Pigs. He liked the sound of that.
Foreclosure
By Alice HatcherThey ordered beef bourguignon and an expensive bottle of cabernet, something extravagant to celebrate the closing.
In Which the Dwarves Enroll in the Comatose Princess Exchange Program
By Katelyn MoormanThough the girl had died, she didn’t rot, so the dwarves kept watch over her body. First she was in a glass covering out front, but they thought that gaudy...
Other Families’ Photos
By Rich GravelinThe antique mall reeks of nicotine-stained cotton and cold cream. I hunt vintage cufflinks; he buys other families’ photos. Groups of redheads are his Grail.
Portrait of the Artist Lost in Target
By Ryan GriffithWhere are you Andy Warhol, in all these acres of antiseptics and ointments? Are you hiding under the racks of slacks like a petulant child too cool for his mother?
Spring Again
By Jess D. TaylorMy second March without a backyard, and while yes, I miss things about the last place we rented together (especially the thick grass where the girls ran circles), our first rental is what I keep conjuring.
A Recurring Mistake
By Diane GottliebIs there any other kind? Bless the soul who learns from her first. Not me. I’m a sucker for repetition, even when it hurts.
Photo Story: Mermaids
By Andrea DanielsPeanut smoked every bit of meth that night in the hotel. Her sister loaned her money. Not exactly. A check for rehab, far from drugs and close to trees.
