I I saw only a glimpse of you that night. I woke, possibly frightened by a dream or the sound of unfamiliar footsteps on the other side of my bedroom door. I peered out. You, a six-foot-two dad who lifted weights and kept a stack of Muscle Builder magazines by the TV, were wearing what …
My mother’s village is about an hour’s drive south from Beirut. The route starts on the coast, the sea to the right, vast, blue, and sparkling in the sun. Beyond the army checkpoint in Sidon, smaller roads east and farther south wind through busy villages lined by short concrete buildings with storefronts on the ground …
The contours of the storage unit concerned the Oligarch. He had wrested a desk chair from under an ottoman and a heap of beanbags bright like succulent fruit. It must have been midmorning by then, the insulated silence of the unit a dawn chorus. He yawed and swiveled, thinking about wrinkled things—not just metal, but …
The windows in the choir room were welded shut. It was just as well; the view was all feet and dirt. Absent natural lighting, the dozen or so of us huddled under an antique fan, broken, with three flickering yellow light bulbs to read our sheet music. I was still new enough in my position …
I The position was tenure-track, the pay good. Great even, when you considered cost of living. The university would even provide a studio. Chava had never lived in the Bible Belt, the Deep South, but she was done with Boston, its frigid winters and people, this flu-like thing that she’d had for the past four …
I It was three days after Christmas when I came home from work and found the gift bag leaning up against my door. “Love, Aunt Gloria,” read the card in her spidery cursive script, the kind that stymied children. I pulled a tin of cheap mint chocolates from the bag. Frango was stamped in bloodred …
Story from Issue 22.1
title taken from Tommy Pico’s Nature Poem I walked like a rage into the body of my life, which insisted the end of grief camein the fulfillment of desire, but desire, like loneliness, is a hunger it willcome back I muzzled grief I desired with a desire beyond desireI repeated the word until it grew …
On the occasion of a Giant Eagle employee double-checking to make sureI rang the right item up at self-checkout Truth: Plátanos are the only produce item I know the PLU code for (4235). Lie: It’s my Caribbean pride. Truth: I just got tired of looking up plantain bananas every time I used self-checkout. Truth: I …
What exists in the shadow of a thingThat casts no light? I wonder if it’s GodOn the other side collecting data fallenPast the horizon. Lonely in the centerOf the Milky Way, the ultimate introvert,What does It know of us? If we are madeOf stardust, do we collapse into ourselvesOn death, our souls an absolute density? …