Winshen Liu Lunch at a Tavern The office courtyard has four tables, eachwith four chairs. My coworkers sit one person per table. They are quintessentialAmericans. I think of the time my mother and I shared a reuben,the angular taste of rye bread. She asked what my greatest fear was.Roaches, heights, meaninglessness. I bit into a […]
Robin Gow Necromancy of My Grandfather I fill his old hat with hard candies and spill them on the floor of my childhood bedroom / my grandfather died in my bedroom / whiskey bottle in the closet / coat rack after coat rack / bodies like mushroom caps / I always wonder what kinds of […]
Joan Kwon Glass Crossing My ten-year-old son plays a video of two foxesfrolicking at night. He’s entranced by their downy coats, their ears, too large for their heads, tails like clouds of woodsmoke as they chase one anotherthen collapse together, into a pulsing nest of fur.I don’t remember ever playing like that as a child,ever […]
Despy Boutris Poem Beginning with a Retweet with a title borrowed from Maggie Smith I respect the moon’s unwillingness to be photographedwith a cell phone. I respect the unwillingnessof a sunset’s orange. Of breath catchingwhen someone you’ve wanted so badly for so longreaches for your cheek, […]
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Livia Clark Claire Claire is waiting for me on the townhouse steps, wearing a green dress. “That’s not what you told me you’d wear,” I say. The block is lined with budding lindens and shabby, enormous rowhouses. Claire’s dress has thin straps and it’s obvious she isn’t wearing a bra. “Hi to you too,” she […]
Kayla Rutledge The Elizabeths On Sundays, from ninety-two different front rows in ninety-two different sanctuaries, pastor’s wives listen to a sermon we’ve already heard. We’ve talked it through over cereal bowls, picked the inky remains of notes from our laundry machines, heard the preacher mumble Hallelujah! in his sleep. Six days a week, our husbands […]
Sophie Paquette Anyway, You’re Here Already my mom is rustling through her vitamin cabinet. Mel and I call this the apothecary. I don’t want to make it sound like she’s some rare bird who raised me to be strange. She just doesn’t trust doctors, and if she could, she’d open me up herself to see […]
Wendy BooydeGraaff Soap and Water Start with the glasses, the thinnest ones first: crystal liqueur glasses etched with flowers, even if they’ve been used after dinner, are most delicate so they go in first; the long-stemmed wine glasses, the thin-walled water goblets, follow. One by one, never two in the suds at the same time. […]
Andrew Zubiri Empirical Evidence: An Abecedary Air Max 2 CB 94In fourth grade, after a round of basketball in P.E. class, we look under the tongue of a classmate’s new Nike Air Max sneaker, then debate which would be the more original pair – one “Made in Korea” or one “Made in Taiwan.” BalikbayanWhen my Lolo’s […]
Read More… from Andrew Zubiri – Empirical Evidence: An Abecedary
Lindsay Sproul Why the Zebra? My friend calls to tell me that tigers are real. When she says it, it sounds impossible. How are they real? “They are,” she says. Pangolins, star-billed moles, opossums, glass frogs, goblin sharks. These are all real. I stare at the IV in my arm and the skin that […]
