Chocolate Cake
By Jennifer WortmanMy dad’s student from the college, who’d come over for dinner, looked at me and said, “You can’t have any chocolate cake!” I was one. He thought he was making a pretty good joke.
How My Mother Posed Me
By Gary FinckeThe photographer instructs my mother to hide under the dark maroon blanket to hold her infant still. “It takes time and quiet for your darling to be perfect,” he says.
The Swedish Word for Joy
By Brett Ann StanciuI begged off 2000 Census training and rushed up the windowless stairs of the cheap-paneled church basement.
Teaching English in the Biology Lab
By Gary FinckeSea life charts are props for Melville, the mounted cat a visual aid for Poe. Leaves are displayed like a nod to Thoreau.
Dimensions of Human Behavior
Alexandra N. KontesShortly after we last spoke, you became a ghost, and I became a hermit.
You play as a femme venom avatar & we never get past the character creation page
By Erin VachonWe’re mashing up faces in the RPG campaign on your game system, two boys sitting, joysticking experience points in a multifaceted digitizer...
False Stars
By Frances BadgettThe frozen ground, hard and cold, lumped under their blanket, dug into them. She followed his finger to the sky.
Golden State
By Charles PrelleWe’re humming down the Pacific Coast Highway just north of San Francisco on our gap year in a rented real American cherry red 1993 Ford Mustang...
The Weight of Things
By Audrey AltEvery Friday, she’s on time to pick up her grandfather, who teases, “Punctuality is your best quality.”
Wild Thing
By Karen CrawfordMother empties Father’s pockets and confiscates his phone. Dollar bills unfurl. Pills scatter like candy across the floor.
John Lennon’s Ghost
By James BurtI once went out with someone whose bath was haunted by John Lennon’s ghost. The faint sound of songs he never got to finish came through the pipes.
The Years, The Years
By Diane GottliebWhen the aides on the night shift drift off to sleep, residents jump out of bed. Tiptoe down hallways to the recreation room. First one in hits the lights.
October Again
By Beth ShermanBark peels off the maples. Leaves wither and die, everyone says how beautiful. Sedum turning a muddy green, like rotten asparagus.
Taste Me and You Die
By Chelsea StickleIn the natural world, yellow and black together mean danger. I’m striped like a bumblebee for the Halloween party...
Inheritance
By Keith J. PowellI think of my father taking me to see Batman opening night. Teaching me poker at the cabin.
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.
