beginning at the bottom of stairs to a bridge next to the Santa Fe trainyard great grandfather never made it home that pay day stolen wallet stolen patriarch a…
I left bits of body and micro-letters on strips of skin at her wedding. Some strips draped the backs of seats like coats. One note: To the bride: Some things are better left buried; does your husband know what you carry? I left every little bit about her. The outdoor wedding gave the guests a view of kayakers slicing rifts…
By Amy Reardon When I first heard the title of Deesha Philyaw’s fiction debut, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, I had to read it. It was the power and elusiveness in that combination of words. Women + Secrets + God? Count me in. Turns out I wasn’t alone. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies debuted in September 2020 and…
Photo by Amanda Witherell The awful is inside the normal. Like normal is pregnant with awful. —Brian Doyle, “Everyone Thinks that Awful Comes by Itself, But It Doesn’t” April 4, 2017 Fanning Island rises into view slow as the morning sun—just a low, green strip of palms with a thin gap near the center. We steer our sailboat for the…
Mine sprouted right through the top of my head. Everyone told me I should feel lucky, there were worse places it could pop up. Imagine the belly button? Or that crease in between the pinky toe and the toe next to the pinky toe? I tried to see the deeper meaning in my sprouting spot, though after years of research…
Each time I quit Prineville Insurance I tell them to stuff it. Each time they choke on the office philodendron, the dry erase markers, and the reams of useless memos waiting for the shredder as I walk out the door. The cost of my mother’s Ensure, dentures, bath railings, diapers — well, I can’t quit anytime soon. Get along to…
Finally Learn English At a Spanish kiosk with second-hand books or in the Thursday morning market, I think I’ll finally learn English, and (though it’s my native language and I teach it) it springs anew in that terrain of fresh ideas, cities and marshes I knew in dreams where waking reason becomes enmired in the lotus, yes, in that…
I work for a content mill. In 30 minutes I can write 500 words for $7. When I look at a single roll of toilet paper, I can tell how many words it’s worth. 7 minutes for a Snickers. 400 words for a bottle of laundry detergent. I log on to a website where clients from all different businesses…
To be fair, I made the mistake of standing too close to the kitchen island and hovering over the charcuterie spread. With my shoulders slouched and arms wide, I looked like a vulture protecting fresh roadkill that it had paid too much for at Whole Foods. Everyone knows that the safest place at a party—especially one where you only know…
burning The wind brings in the morning even sooner than the birds. It’s covered in smoke. One sniff— clean-moist-grass dirt-tumbled-down-from-the-night-before peeling-eucalyptus the-promise-of-heat —All the smells are smudged with ash. Fire. Not here, but close enough. There’s no direction it’s not. Enough reason for me to get back home, but I stand on the stone steps, motionless, as the…