MY MOTHER’S COVER-UP I bought one for her at Walgreens—teal blue with sparkles. She was so hunched over and short by then, it flowed almost to her ankles. I kept it here in Florida so that when she visited it was one...
Protagonist Syndrome
my girlfriend’s best friend is convinced she has covid. I’ve heard all her stories – I admit, there’s a good chance she has. but last week, when her housemate was sick with a fever, she had said it was...
from The Lisa Sequence
from The Lisa Sequence Smile The obedient child will smile for any picture, will wait for the camera in the school’s cafeteria on that singular day, lined up with the rest, steadying herself, brushed that morning and...
ON THE WAY TO PARADISE
Jessie O’Neal is touring again. The Tribune printed another clever Jessie story. I’m sure she called the reporter. She knows them all by now. Maybe she needed to sell more tickets. The lady knows how to create interest...
from The Hyakunin Isshu: A Hundred Poems by A Hundred Poets
42. Chigiriki na Katami no sode wo Shibori tsutsu Sue-no-matsu yama Nami kosaiji to wa —Kiyowara no Motosuke We promised— Holding onto each other; While twisting each other’s sleeves, Waves would never surge over...
Ultima Multis
The polishing rag folded inside a bespoke vest I purchased on impulse has a name sewn on by hand: Ultima Multis. And when I’m shining my mouth harps after a solitary session of practice, I ask the piece of flag if she...
The Desert
Translated from Kurdish by Basir Borhani Hashoush’s younger sister rushed inside and spat out briskly, “Mom…! Mom, the Kurds will be moved again tomorrow.” At that moment, Hashoush and I were sitting opposite each...
Real Names in Real Clothing
Translated from Farsi by S. Ganjbakhsh 1 In 1850, during a religious civil conflict, a sixteen-year-old girl called Zaynab who was skilled in martial arts had to cut her hair and fight in men’s clothing. She was even...
Girl Versus Gun: What I Learned from Dating a Responsible Gun Owner
He slept with a teddy bear until he got a gun. Then he slept with his gun. That is not what Machiavelli meant when he wrote, “There can be no proper relation between one who is armed and one who is not.” We met online...
Volcanology
By Rosie Garland and Meg Pokrass There is fire beneath our pavements, beneath our houses. There is fire in my brother’s eyes, inside my brother’s hair. There is a family in our cupboards, a scentless lukewarm one...
The Escape
Evin Prison, 9:10 p.m. Local time. October 15, 2022 She wanted to run…but she could only take one long step to every corner of the cell and: wall…wall…wall… she pulled up her chin on the rusty sill around a small...
Interview of Leslie Pietrzyk Admit This to No One
In Admit This to No One, Leslie Pietrzyk makes even tertiary characters feel alive, flawed, and full of longing. In her collection, life brims at every corner of Washington, D.C., and those lives are bound together by...
A Thousand Times More than a Thousand Times More: a Working-Class Boy Surveys the Altitudes of American Money
1. On my first day with what was to become America’s most profitable law firm, I had the last of my inherited wisdom smacked out of me: that our declining town is superior to the most prosperous cities, that our...
Three Letters of Recommendation
I will grant you anything you want, the Genie of the Lamp said. Three wishes…but first you must provide three letters of recommendation. The villa in Italy where they serve you bonbons hourly, while you gaze at the...
It’s Hard to Be Housed
I’m at Meth Park on a balmy day, and all the homeless meth users are spread out on blankets like it’s a picnic. Behind us, I see mothers with toddlers on the way to the playground. They cast resentful glares toward...
No Separate Joy
I like it when a thing and its opposite are both true, so it is like holding your hand up to a mirror, and regarding both your palm and the back of your hand with a single glance. I like it even more since I have...