Joe Kapitan

Joe Kapitan writes fiction and creative nonfiction from a glacial ridgeline south of Cleveland. Recent work has appeared or will appear in DIAGRAM, New World Writing, Passages North and Pithead Chapel. He is the author of a short story collection, CAVES OF THE RUST BELT (Tortoise Books). His miniature labradoodle snores much worse than he does.

TRAUMA SCOUTS OF AMERICA by Joe Kapitan

For the sisters of brothers   Merit Badge: Hatchet Skills Beth’s two fingertips laid there on the plywood floor of our fort in the woods. Her left middle and left index looked like two rubber fakes with the nails painted a loud orange, two made-in-Taiwan Halloween gags from Spencer’s Gifts in the mall, except that the pool of blood between her shaking, mangled left hand and the detached fingertips was growing fast, each beat of her pounding heart made visible by a fresh outflow from the stumps. The guilty hatchet was dropped next to the pool of blood, its blade…

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