Archives

CHEATER by Norris Eppes

February 15, 2020

I go there to ask why I go there. I go there to pick up trash from the sand. In the sand, I draw a heart with my toe. My initial. My wife’s initial. The initial of our shared last name. Then, I make two footprints beside it and let the incoming tide bury my feet. An elderly couple walks toward me along the hard sand. I do not want to talk. They stop and talk. “We are from near the Austrian border.” The man moves his cigar from right hand to left so we can shake. My hand is

A CIRCULAR SCAR by Shannon St. Hilaire

February 13, 2020

A guy I dated briefly once asked about my mother of pearl ring. Everyone knows a ring has a story. “I won’t tell you,” I said before I could stop myself. Then I corrected, saying I bought it off Etsy, but it was too late. I would never tell him the story of my ring, because to know and understand my ring was to know and understand me. If I told someone about my rings, about this ring in particular, it would signal to me that I trusted them, and they trusted me, too. And I had no interest in

THE PROSPECTIVE, OR WHAT I TELL THE MAN IN THE CAFE by Sudha Balagopal

February 12, 2020

My parents sent me to the movies with a man they found in the matrimonial columns of the Mumbai newspaper. They told me he was a romantic, a Bollywood aficionado. Perfect for someone like me who read Austen. They made concessions for this prospective from America, sending me out with a man for the first time, alone, at age twenty-one. My eyebrows stung—they’d been threaded and shaped into perfect crescents. The crimson on my nails and lips felt vulgar. I wanted to pull out the pins in my French braid, let my hair loose. *** You ask to meet with

MANLESSNESS by Meg Pokrass

February 11, 2020

The pizza delivery boy stumbles at the front door. He’s a bit shy. Me and Mom order pizza five nights a week. I serve her slices in bed, this is where she eats. When I open the door to him, I’m like a puddle of a girl, not a woman yet, not full of issues. What I offer: freckles, smiles, a minor eye twitch. “Blaze on, you two! You and your momma are PIZZA QUEENS!” he says. This kind of thing makes me unnaturally happy about the trials of living with a family who has stopped cooking food. The delivery

CINNAMON by Gina Marie Bernard

February 10, 2020

“Your mother should have had them tear you from her womb,” my stepmom says. “For the wicked shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” I flinch but know better than to reply. “What the hell, Darlene? You can’t say that shit,” my dad says from his recliner in the living room. As usual, it sounds more like a request. “I speak the Lord’s truth,” she replies, emphasizing each syllable with the wooden spoon she has pointed at him. “He will not abide your daughter acting like some filthy dyke.” My father looks from her to me. He shrugs and mouths,

HEADLESS HORSEMAN by Liz Fyne

February 9, 2020

Years ago I had a terrible dream that my cat was guillotined. Afterward she rolled her eyes this way and that, and it came to me that as a head you have no options. Questions spin through your mind on their way out forever and you want to cry and flail but all you can do is roll your eyes. In my case there was no guillotine. What happened was more of a spontaneous disconnect, because the junction was loose and my life was full of shaking. People say bronco busting can detach your kidneys, but no one warns about

IN THE TIME OF CLIMATE CHANGE (APOCALYPTIC VIEWFINDER #1) by Kathryn Kulpa

February 8, 2020

Flashing Obama I was feeding the cats and Barack Obama was there, at my back door, standing on the deck. He wore aviator sunglasses and a blue chambray shirt and jeans. I wanted to let him in but I had to keep one hand on my belt loop because I didn’t have a belt and my pants kept slipping and how awful would it be if my pants fell down in front of Obama? I had things I wanted to talk about with Obama. I wanted him to convince Joe Biden to drop out of the race. Joe Biden is

WHOSE HUNGER by Kristen Estabrook

February 3, 2020

In the hours prior to dinner, she studied her reflection in the mirror, checking and rechecking the flaws in her complexion, adjusting and readjusting the height of her hair, while thinking about sex. On their second date, he had asked about sex. He had asked if she was ready. She was not. “It’s only the second date,” she had said. She wondered if he would ask again and expected that he would. She wondered what she would say this time. That it was only the third? Then she remembered. Her period. Her period! She was on her period. That worked

FAIR NIGHT NUMBER ONE by Tom Weller

February 2, 2020

Scrap Boys have each other. Scrap Boy 1, Scrap Boy 2, Scrap Boy 3, three prepubescent bodies lean and sharp as barbed wire, three backyard haircuts, three thunder-clap voices, three tornado spirits joined like the three chambers of a rattler’s heart. And tonight the Scrap Boys have the fair. Tonight they have snow cones and onion rings and rides that spin the Scrap Boys around and around and around and around until they can’t tell up from down. Tonight they have rock songs banging out of rickety speakers rattling their ribs. Tonight the Scrap Boys breathe humid night air full

I TOLD HIM I WOULD by Steve Chang

February 1, 2020

Before his accident, he’d called to ask if I’d go drinking with him. I told him, No, not tonight. I’d started writing again. Wow, he said. That’s cool! I guess, I said. We both listened a little longer on the phone. * I would tell myself—in the months to come—that besides the lateness of the call, I’d had no reason to suspect anything might be wrong. I would tell myself that he’d always been fine, alone. I would tell myself all kinds of things before I could, finally, imagine us talking. Alright then, he said, getting ready to go. Write