Darling at Dinner
By Ellie PruskoThe waiter was staring at Darling, not me. When Darling admitted she wasn't 18, he left her wine glass anyway. He took mine immediately, probably mistaking me for 12.
Your Hair Looks Like Taillights
By Lexi ButlerYou talk to your mother in Spanish, your sister in English, and then in numbers to order Chinese take-out. And you love to talk, especially about how you grew up in a one-room walk-up.
Canadensis
By Corinne SilverThey arrived silently, swiftly during the night and stood present by morning. They flocked the fields, parking lots, and manmade suburban ponds. They were big.
Her Mother, My Mother
By Hema NatarajuHer mother never wore a sari, my mother never did not. Her mother drove a Mustang, my mother walked everywhere, even though I hated being picked up last.
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.
Don’t Bother, They’re Here
By Meg Pokrass“Guess what, Hon? They’re here!” you said, referring to the clowns. They were pounding on our door.
Gone Hunting
By Binx R. PerinoDanny sucks the wet end of a cigarette, tapping his hand on the steering wheel. Wisps of Maggie’s hair whip around from the rolled-down windows.
Kingdom Come
By D.E. HardyStill, I hunger for you: those nights we’d get so high we turned into earthworms, how we would writhe, reverent, our entire bodies capable of taste...
Grace at the Intersection of Cass and Nebraska
By Joanna TheissToday, I saw you accepting a dollar bill from a truck window. The shake of your hips as you thanked the driver reminded me of your electric slide at the middle school dance.
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...
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.
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.
Foreclosure
By Alice HatcherThey ordered beef bourguignon and an expensive bottle of cabernet, something extravagant to celebrate the closing.
