Clik here to view.
Not A Cupid by Molly Giles
I bought him from a woman in Juarez who said she was his aunt. She said his name was Beto; she said he was twelve. He didn’t look twelve; he looked ten, a black eyed brat with curly hair and scabby...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Choice Cuts by Genevieve Mathis
The dog has found something at the edge of the yard and is rolling in it. He flops down and slides cheek to shoulder to flank, pops up and repeats the maneuver on his other side. Ordinarily he is a...
View ArticleBallad of Lefty by Leah Rogin-Roper
Lefty is a whole different hand than Righty. I didn’t realize it until I broke my right arm, the slip on the ice both momentary and eternal. It hurt so badly that, for a moment, it made me glad to be...
View ArticleGone for the Night by Sophia Wiltrout
Phoebe was up in the mountains somewhere, probably stalking a white-tailed deer through the grimy underbrush. I was at home, in our shared bed, bathed in the hypnotic glare of our shared television...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What We Cannot Change by Alexander Cendrowski
Every robot I’ve ever met was utterly and totally harmless, except for the ones that weren’t. Every other-than-harmless robot I’ve ever met was utterly and totally dismantled by the robot enforcers,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Talking Through the Lobster by Amanda Chiado
Listen to a reading of “Talking Through the Lobster” by Amanda Chiado. After Cody Schibi When I climb up the picture wall with my gas mask on, the photo of my grandmother smells like sugar cookies, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Undergrounds by Deirdre Hines
Listen to a reading of “Undergrounds” by Deirdre Hines. Shu-Fang is being teleported from the wastelands to what was once Ascension Island to prove she is the wildcrafter her ancestresses were, to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The One That Got Away by Jane O’Keeffe
April 23, 2009 Marc Davis, counsel for Bransford County, Washington, strode into his office and dropped his clear plastic container full of cheese, bacon bits, nuts, croutons, blue cheese...
View ArticleClik here to view.
in such perilous circumstance by Timston Johnston
Headlines say: NEVER FARTHER. Not true. True in 1510 when Jupiter was nameless against the horizon, seen as a god’s wandering eye to be battled, to be beaten by leveraged stances, by muscle memory, by...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What We by Vanessa Cuti
On the Wednesday of the worst week of our lives, we went to the club and drank a Chardonnay so chilled it rattled our back teeth and made our arm hair stand on end. We ordered escargot but instead ate...
View ArticleSnow Cranes by Kenneth Duffy
It starts in the blood. The scientists and the shamans and the wisest of the movie stars all agree that it is caused by the iron in haemoglobin—by the dissonance of so cold and solid a substance moving...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Guide to Wioskasłomy by David Galef
Listen to a reading of “A Guide to Wioskasłomy” by David Galef. The high-walled town of Wioskasłomy, 6.5 kilometers below the mouth of the Dragon Phlegm River in Irmsk, has only recently emerged from...
View ArticleBike Heaven by Steven Grassel
Listen to a reading of “Bike Heaven” by Steven Grassel. We looked around when the bicycles left. We went to the spots. Stood in the spots where the bikes had been and concentrated. Where had we left...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Rise and Fall of Reme by Andrew Gretes
Listen to a reading of “The Rise and Fall of Reme” by Andrew Gretes. The poster read: “What if Remus defeated Romulus?” It depicted smiling faces and children laughing. At the bottom was a Twitter...
View ArticleHanged Man by Amit Majmudar
You and a friend are playing Hangman. You draw the upside-down L of the gallows and set down eight dashes. Your friend guesses letters. He guesses none of the letters correctly. Part by part, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Flirting by Kate Gies
I like your eyes, he says, so she sticks her finger in the right socket and wiggles things about until an eye pops onto the table. He picks it up, shovels it into his mouth, bites down. Thank you, he...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Le Témoin by Kathleen Rooney
How does one touch a wound? A bombshell, unfledged, stands on the ledge of the window of a castle beneath a sky smogged gray. Loulou the Pomeranian perceives it as the fog of war, and the pile of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Three Ways to Eat Quince by Michelle Ross
Ripe, quince is knobby and hard, like bone. You could break a window with it. You could break your teeth. That’s what Liza’s boss at the market told her about the strange yellow fruits in the red crate...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Oater, With Air Conditioning by Tyler Stoddard Smith
Throbs of heat blur the horizon. Clanging from the silver mine echoes against the mesa as dull winds kicks up dry earth. A clop of hooves, and from the cloud appears a man in black. The black is more...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Second-to-Last Supper by Amit Majmudar
It took me years of sitting at this table, holding this chalice, and gazing to my right before I recognized myself as an apostle in an unremarkable 16th-century depiction of the Last Supper. Though I...
View ArticleGoing Down by Adrienne Parker
When your wife decides you are both ready to try an open marriage because, as she says, what is love but letting go, you realize it is the illusion of a choice she is offering you. You are in bed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Meat Beauty by Simon Pinkerton
If you go out to the back of a grocery store, you can find a plethora of discarded meat, all amazing different meaty parts with bone, gristle and wires in it, and if you take a pair of gloves, some...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Feel This Way by Charles Heiner
Listen to a reading of “Feel This Way” by Charles Heiner. It’s too late when I realize I’ve picked up the wrong package. I thought my Venus flytrap had arrived, but instead I find a box inside that...
View ArticleWil E. Coyote by Amit Majmudar
The road runner is running already when the coyote first sees him. This running is aimless, running the road because the road is there. The coyote’s pursuit gives the running a destination: escape. Yet...
View ArticleFirst Sorrows by Emil Ostrovski
Alone one afternoon, I crooned the lyrics to a favorite song—”I’m blue, da ba dee, da ba die!”—so loud it sent my dog Sadie into a frenzy. She skittered about the house, sliding on the hardwood...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Voice by Aisha Phoenix
Listen to a reading of “Voice” by Aisha Phoenix. Age four I’m sitting next to my mother in church singing Amazing Grace when she whispers, “Quieten down” in my ear. I don’t. I love how my voice cuts...
View ArticleClik here to view.
And The Wind Blew In Laura by Sarah Arantza Amador
The wind blew hard on Thanksgiving, as was usual in Coldwater Canyon. The remains of my fragmented family gathered in my great uncle Jose’s home. Folding tables were lined up like dominos, stretching...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Above Rubies by Dawn Davies
I am waiting for the church bus when I see her cross the city street. She wobbles, a fawn on cruel shoes of metal traps; her ankles threaten to snap, her elbows out to hold her balance. Her mother...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Then Go To Paris, I Say by Yasmina Din Madden
My mother is beautiful even when she bangs her head against the wall. When she does, her black, shiny hair swings back and forth and I can see, in profile, the swell of her upper lip hanging just a bit...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Valentine Springs by Daniel Riddle Rodriguez
Shortly after her first period, Valentine begins finding traps around her house. At first they are small—snares made of shoelace that snake along the hallway, glue traps in her bedroom closet—and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kaleidoscope by Stefan Lutter
A whole lot of questions come up when we drive along Poller Avenue past the man who spins the sign outside Discount Liquor. Is he paid? Dad harrumphs and asks in what currency. Does he wear...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Big Girl’s Guide to Love by Natalie Lima
This will be complicated. Because although society seems to be opening itself up to different standards of beauty—to larger, softer bodies like yours, you have spent most of your life disliking your...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Michael Hudson Presents Melanie Moore with a Non-Exhaustive, Yet...
1. Lies a. You told me you had had an OB/GYN appointment earlier that day and the duckbill thingy was so cold that when the doctor pushed it in your vagina it stuck to your flesh. Just like Flick’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Prepared by Chris Ceravolo
I have prepared my burrito in my mind. That is what you need to do at Chipotle: prepare your burrito—know it like the song in your soul. Because they have prepared their questions. They know their...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Seven Degrees of Separation by Anne Lawrence Bradshaw
Listen to a reading of “Seven Degrees of Separation” by Anne Lawrence Bradshaw. 1. You didn’t seem to notice. I felt the kernel of it forming, hot and sudden, like an electric pulse inside me. You were...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Equestrian by Cal Freeman
Had I asked to be pack ice adrift, ready to be broken at the bottle neck of a river flow that winter? I can’t imagine asking to be an owl tracking voles through the shallow snow. I didn’t ask...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Freckles by Betsy Jemas
When I was eight years old, I fell in love. He had peanut butter hair, chaotic freckles and walked on his tiptoes like the earth couldn’t handle him. His last name was a “Q” last name and I was an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Thick-Boned by Rebecca Ann Jordan
Listen to a reading of “Thick-Boned” by Rebecca Ann Jordan. And in a year between apocalypses, my brother takes me to an aspen forest. Now it only looks like fire, the yellow leaves making no sound at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Contortion, Distortion by Christina Sun
When he had sex with a girl on the beach at Coney Island. They wrestled in the sand under a blood moon to the slap of the high tide. They didn’t use protection. Afterwards, they stopped by the local...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Stevie Wonder Apology Tour by Anthony Inverso
I had a decent apology tour lined up, but to seal the deal I needed Stevie Wonder. Not, like, I needed his music, but rather I needed the man himself. I called him up. “Hello,” he said. Little...
View ArticleAfter The Revolution by Emil Ostrovski
After The Revolution, I came home to find my youngest child dying. Food was scarce in those days, and electricity intermittent. Maybe my son had gotten food poisoning, the doctors suggested. But...
View ArticleClik here to view.
All That by Julie Benesh
We are not all that anymore. We have not lived up to our early promise. We were the most beautiful babies born that day to our own respective mothers; our Apgar scores were off the chart. Growing up,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Apocalypse 1983 by Ann Lightcap Bruno
The Nova was rusted out from winter salt, and Dale was beautiful like no boy. He’d pull into the parking lot of my father’s chicken stand at closing time and idle there until I came out. He liked me...
View ArticleClik here to view.
At the town baseball fields by Julie Doar
At the town baseball fields in Sharon, Connecticut: My little brother Bobby has a baseball game. My older brother Michael and I take him. Michael’s yellow-haired fiance comes along. My little...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Just to Spite the Recession by Kawika Guillermo
In Kerala an elderly Sikh invites you and Sophea into his small apartment to watch WWF wrestling. He feeds you Tandoori chicken, egg curry and scrambled eggs and tomatoes. He doesn’t speak a word of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Casting Off by Ann Hillesland
First I knit the stars. I fixed them shimmering in the ceiling’s firmament. Next, I knit an ocean, of yarn cobalt and aqua and sliver threaded blue. I filled the sea, knitting the fish and all the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pink Sock by Amy Landau
I pulled off one pink sock. It turned into a pink cat. I pulled off the other pink sock and stared at it. It remained a sock. Ok, let me break this down for you. I pulled off one pink sock...
View ArticleChinese People by Michael K. Meyers
Inside the bean, once I got hold of it, had a good grip—popped it open with my cuticle scissors—inside was an inch-long insect, brown in colour with, I counted, the right number of legs or almost. Lost...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Remain Alert and Have a Safe Day by Kate Sheeran Swed
Descend. Choose a spot on the baking sheet to await the hot breath of charging dragons. They will probably be your salvation, but have not ruled out the possibility of broiling you alive....
View ArticleBucket List by Kate Sparks
As my wheelchair starts its slow slip down the icy knoll, the slate blue shadow of late afternoon finishes its crawl across the grounds of the Taos Pueblo, up the one-thousand-year-old adobe walls, and...
View Article
