A drop of water splashes on her face when I lift my foot, silt clinging to my sole. She gently cradles my heel in her hand as she wets a corner of the rag. A school of tadpoles swim by. A crooked grin breaks over his teeth. The rag tickles, but my stomach curls. Sons and I don’t look at each other while she works between my toes.
Fiction
Sons
This is the part
by Francine Witte
where I believe that it was the goddamn fault of the night willow, that if it hadn’t been so blacked out like it was, bowed so brushy and low, you could have seen your way around it. Could have driven a clean road home like you do every night, except this one.
Parable of the Mother
by Lane Chasek
Her gift, which she discovered when she was sixteen, consists of looking at these pieces of garbage and watching them take the shape of a human being.
Awkward Little Creatures that Flail About, 1956
by John Brantingham
it’s early June twilight, the bats just now coming out and they stand awkwardly on the gravel of the driveway, crunching it back staring up at the little creatures that flail about until Henry asks Clyde what he wants, which is natural enough but said in a little punk tone that Clyde wants to slap out of his mouth
“Your Eyes In the Darkness”
A Review of Rick White’s Talking to Ghosts at Parties
by Chase Erwin
White drags the reader, as if by the collar, through moments in time and space that reflect and refract each other, both literally and thematically.
In the Kingdom of Toads & Bones
by Rick White
– CONTENT WARNING: Animal Abuse –
In the mornings — before school — there was always tea. China cups, whistling kettle, hot metal stove. Warm smell of butane, blackened matches, crunch of buttered things. Now there is only steam. It pools on every surface and spit-trickles down black windowpanes, shiny tears.
Winter by Jasna Dimitrijević
translated from the Serbian by John K. Cox
Since I moved away to a bigger city, I seldom come back home. Only for holidays and the anniversaries of a few people’s deaths.
Islands by Elena Varvello,
translated from the Italian by Jennifer Panek
On dark days, days when she thought there was really nothing important to be done, she had the impression that for women like herself, the world might just keep shrinking down until it was small enough to fit into a shopping list. And then everything would seem to contract, to the point where she couldn’t breathe any more, as if the walls and the ceiling were closing in on her…
Command Hook
by Thomas Mixon
There’s nothing less than a relationship at stake, when one opens a package of LED white star lights on green wire from Target, and another opens an identical package, and both get frustrated trying to untangle the strings.
Every Kind of Woman
by Kristine Morgan
The first casting call was a genesis. I’m sure of it now. I walked into a warehouse on the southeast side of town.