Photo Story: Seasonal Monogamy
By Rachel CainAt the park we watch the sunset turn muddled purple, like a bruise. He says, “Did you know ducks are only partners for a season?”
Photo Story: Declarations
By Erika NgHer voice is swallowed by the sound of a dozen languages cutting across your ears. You ask her to repeat the question and she says, more annoyed this time, “Do you have anything to declare?”
Photo Story: Warm and Alive
By Andrea DanielsA careful undertaker from Sheepshead Bay. We met via personal ad, his exactly three lines long. A tidy accounting of loneliness.
Photo Story: 1974
By Riley AnnWe didn’t talk that summer. My father drowned out the silence with the news: Nixon, war, the World Series...
Photo Story: If I Could Buy Thoughts
By Amy MarquesI would give a penny to the student who sits in the back and looks down whenever they sense a question coming ...
Photo Story: The Candy Store Thinks She’s an Ocean
By Linda Grierson-IrishShe’d glimpsed scenes from a documentary on a girl’s mobile screen. Now her syrupy exhalations smell brackish.
Photo Story: Now, We’ll Hold Her Forever
By Lauren KardosI cup you in my palm, brushing your curls with my thumbnail. The ringlets, once soda-can width, now spiral like tiny quinoa germs.
Photo Story: The Dare
By Joanna TheissBlister heat, sunstroke heat. Melted tar, fried egg heat. T-shirt stuck to the small of my back heat, bunched wet and sour under my armpits heat.
Photo Story: Taco Truck
By Linda Grierson-IrishDad’s latest between-jobs hobby was circling ads with orange highlighter. Imagine, love! An RV! Airstream? Converted bus?
Photo Story: On Autoimmune Disease
By Lauren VoeltzI read a quote that an overweight woman’s shirt said Guess, and Arnold Schwartzenegger answered, thyroid problem and I think of this when I pop Levothyroxine each morning...
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.
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.
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.
Photo Story: Dan Needs Sober Friends
By Patrick GreweShe screams toward him: “There are faces…” points adamantly “…in the lights!”
Photo Story: Testing Mom’s Claims During Lunch at the Tail End of Our Final Family Vacation
By Abbie BarkerThey’re arguing again. Mom says she shouldn’t sit in the sun...
Photo Story: The Gaps Between
By Denise BayesThey announced on the radio that Freddie was dead. I picked up the phone. “Come over,” he said.
Photo Story: Valentine
By Christy BrothersMom packs us into the car. Billy and Jasmine sleep. I sit up front chewing the corners of my nails until they bleed.
Photo Story: At a speed of 0.5 inches per second
By Nora NadjarianThe heartbeat is fast and sharp, except no one knows where the snail’s heart is.
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.
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.
