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.
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.
Calling at: Pharmacy, Florist, and Off-Licence only
By Lucy GoldringStrange to go against the flow, to squeeze through bodies hell-bent on bagging seats aboard a train going nowhere.
When the Solid Gives Way
By Kathleen LathamThe dog trotted onto the frozen pond to fetch an errant stick. That is how I picture it, at least. The boy trudging along the snow packed shore.
