
TRAIL OF SMALL CLOWNS by Caleb Bethea
I heard my liver slapping onto the tile floor. My pancreas half falling out of me, hanging all the way down into the sink with my old skin.

I heard my liver slapping onto the tile floor. My pancreas half falling out of me, hanging all the way down into the sink with my old skin.

The teacher hated the children. Ashley with her electric fence and Michelle with her little doll and Daniel with his frog.

But today there was a cabin. A small, rough thing. Caked in leaves. Inside, they found old cans and an old bed and an old table. Inside, they found a calendar stuck on July 1992.

In your mind, is there nothing better than coming home after a punishing day in the asteroid mines, firing up a space joint, and taking a blissful sound bath in the pure vibes pouring forth from your carefully curated LP collection?

…we never even noticed a voyeur, Shana—a girl new to the school, friendless and odd—hiding behind the monkey bars, spying…

Maybe we discuss how soft our wives’ hands are, how they look in the shower, how they may or may not love us.

God shares my taller daughter’s name now. Which is Hope. I say it five times when she covers the inbound. Hope. Hope. Hope. Hope. Hope.

And says a warrior’s prayer as the mahogany bear carvings come alive. She understands the will of the Valkyrie as the will of the H bomb.

John tracked their interactions and gauged the hierarchy. A redhead with no shirt and a flashbang sunburn ordered the youngest ones around. They worked in shifts now.

Almost breathlessly, he raved to me that he had done it: He had separated himself from nature once and for all. I pointed out that we ate from nature before a light flickered in his eyes and I cupped my hand over my mouth.