Quandaries by Kevin McLellan i. The Clearing at the edge of a forest seen from above, sayfrom an airplane, looks like the back of this man’s neck, the finehairline, a young man who sits with his back to me as I destroythe heart-shape on top of the cortado or rather as...
Hardware by Danielle Shorr Men never asked how old I was.Instead, they wanted to know howyoung I was, and whether it was enough. Of course, I didn’t know that then,and why would I? The product wasattention and it was free. The origins and their ethics did not concern...
White Belief by Uyen Phuong Dang After the war, the government started a campaign to number all the trees in the city. Let the future be as bounteous as the trees, it said. Then a few disappeared. One was found inside Baba’s rice bowl. It had small red lights for eyes...
Sermon on the Rocks by Vicki Nyman It always began when Mommy suddenly stood, her upper-middle-aged body rising from the sofa to hover above me, distant as the ceiling of a Gothic cathedral. The nave we called our living room would be rocked by seismic forces: the...
Won’t Not by Laura Leigh Morris I scan the room for Charlie’s blue overalls, waiting for him to pop from behind a bookshelf or from within the play kitchen. A group of two-year-olds tumbles over one another on the story mat, none of them Charlie. More dance...
