Accommodating by Jen Corrigan The day they pulled Gary’s body from the grain bin, Lydia called in sick to her summer job at the ice cream parlor. On the other end of the line, Lydia’s coworkers shouted shake orders back and forth, and the soft serve...
The Conversation by Michael Keenan Gutierrez In Miami, we had Palmetto bugs, a euphemism for giant, flying cockroaches. They took root in our cupboards and silverware drawers, played house under the bed, and colonized our closets. At night they flew through the dark...
Pre Pointe Exercises by Jesse Falzoi for Javier Carranza & Edwin Mota I woke up on a doormat, completely naked, with enormous wings attached to my back. And when this young man came out of his apartment, he asked me in English –he had some Eastern European accent...
There’s Nothing Past This by Emily Townsend That one. That bag in the overhead, the ripped corner, the brown strap seemingly torn by a feral dog, hanging off the brink. There’s an edge cubing the zipper, the size of gift card. It glows in the fluorescent lights....
Years by Doug Ramspeck The years are a hive. Or a swarm. They gather in the prisoner’s chest or with the hairs that protrude like tiny dark weeds on the surface of his arms. Or maybe they are his breaths or the sounds of him rolling over in his cot or reaching out to...
Some Things You Can Ask Me by Rita Ciresi After I left the nursing home, I sat in my Lexus in the parking lot. It was hot. It was June. My parents would have been married sixty years today. Dad was long gone. But I’d left Mom slumped in her wheelchair in her...
