Fiction

GALVESTON, TEXAS by Alex Weidman

September 29, 2019

This Texas night is similar to a Mexico night. Both are deeply oppressive, deeply black and unyielding, lunar in no real sense, unless one is thinking about the dark side of the moon and, really, only the appearance of the dark side of the moon. Outside the car windows it is absolutely unchanging. It is not like an El Salvador night Javier thinks. El Salvador nights are fertile and alive, and similar to Guatemalan nights and similar, up to a point, to very southern Mexico nights. They are deeply alive, which Javier knows to mean they are deeply human, which

GLORIA TIPENE by Kaye Gilhooley

September 26, 2019

Really? Is it? Gloria Tipene in layers of dirty designer dresses? Gloria Tipene with hay-thatch hair and farmer’s cheeks? Gloria Tipene who is watched and wondered about aloud, shuffles along the street stopping at each bin and lamppost and shop window that catches her magpie eye; carries her life in a performance of plastic bags, string-tied parcels, pull-behind and push-forward trolleys; whispering harshly and sometimes shouting her lines. Is that Gloria Tipene, dazzled by the display of gold and rubies and pearls and diamonds, dreamily tracing the circles of engagement rings, wedding rings and earrings with her skinny dirt-encrusted fingernail.

BODY OF BLOOD by Sarah E. Harris

September 25, 2019

The average adult carries seven percent of their weight in blood. Number of wonders and of sins. Blood is a sacrifice and so is a woman, which I suppose explains some things. Like: the scar at the top of my head, from the hospital machinery when I was born. Like: loving the taste of a copper penny, acid and hard and bright on the tongue. Like: the vertigo that comes even now, standing suddenly. How hard it is to hold this ground. When the pain started they said it was nothing, then they said to seek therapy, then they said

BUGS by Zac Smith

September 22, 2019

Every day I went outside to find new bugs. I found bugs on the ground. I found bugs on the street. I found bugs in the garbage. I found bugs on a dead skunk on the road. I found bugs writhing around the inside of a tree that had split in half during a windstorm, in the middle of the night there was this incredible cracking sound, like thunder, but there was no rain, it was just the tree snapping in half and then it crashed onto the ground. The inside of it was a network of narrow passages and

THE TRUTH IN SOMETHING BLUE, AN ART LECTURE AT THE AUCTION HALL WITH MEDIEVAL ART SCHOLAR MARC LAFERNE ON THE R___BERG “MARIAN” IMAGE by Erika Franz

September 20, 2019

The picture tells the entire story of the court B___, Duchess of R___berg. It’s a strange language, though—the economics of color in the late medieval era, the templates of the religious, the indifference to women in love, and the varying devotion to the differing mores of Christianity, framed for you in Gothic arches. Most of you carry around a mere caricature of the medieval world. You assume Puritanical prudery—but the Puritans belong to a later age. So, to the picture, once tucked into a niche at the convent at R___berg. Surely, this is a religious devotional. Here is surely Mary,

ONLY THE FRUIT BEARING TREES by Kate Gehan

September 19, 2019

The morning after a stormy night spent hiding in a windowless room while sirens announced a green sky, Nichole discovers the last plum tree has fallen on the soggy side of the house. She runs her palm along the fungus scaling the trunk and plucks at the earnest flower petals. At the bottom of the yard trapped against the fence, a large red bouncy ball swivels and shudders in a puddle. The taut plastic reveals a phone number written in black marker along with a smudged word beginning with a T. Nichole drops the petals into the grass and sends

GARDEN TOOLS by Amie Norman Walker

September 17, 2019

I crunch numbers on my Excel sheet and pause to reflect upon the decency of the dirt beneath my fingernails. I dug in my garden all weekend, pulled up weeds, ground plants, and potted them. Back inside my office, I question if gardener was the correct occupation for my soul to hang from. Using a business card, I carve the dirt from my crevasses over my one-lined to-do list. I was tasked with contacting the new business partner’s accountant by a woman who sat through the recent meeting with no contribution other than to nod and smile at the two

QUEEN OF THE BEES by Juniper Tubbs

September 11, 2019

Today, naturally, I saved the bees. Let me be clear – today I read that the bees are going extinct. I also read on the internet that if you put a bee in your freezer, it won’t die, it’ll just become very, very tired and then go to sleep. Then, if you warm it up a little bit, it’ll fly off without a care in the world. I hope you can see where I’m going with this. I gathered the most beautiful lilacs and freesias, the most gorgeous orchids and begonias and zinnias; and threw them all in a pile

NEGAUNEE, MICHIGAN by Ron Riekki

September 10, 2019

I grew up in Negaunee. It’s a town you’ve never heard of. My ancestors are Saami. It’s an entire culture you’ve never heard of. My father was a sampler. It’s a job you’ve never heard of. He collected iron ore samples from the mines for testing. We live by a lot of mines you’ve never heard of—Empire, Tilden, Jackson. Upper Peninsula’s often misspelled Upper Penisula. I swear to God. Although God wouldn’t like me swearing about how the place I was born and raised is called a penisula by people who don’t use spellcheck. But this all happened before spellcheck.

MIND WHAT’S GOOD by L Mari Harris

September 9, 2019

The girl sits on her old teeter totter in the backyard, eating mini marshmallows out of a bag. Pushes off. Crick. Down. Crick. Pushes off again. Crick. Pork Chop the Chihuahua watches each marshmallow go from fingers to mouth, cocking one eyebrow, then the other. A man in a black suit and hat walks down the alley. It’s early August, 98 degrees. He has something in his hand. “Hey, Mister! What’s in your hand?” The man stops at the fence and holds a hammer and a bar of soap up. The girl and Pork Chop stare. Mrs. Potter from three