One Whiskey Jag West of Amboy, two long snakes of rail stretch, coal-black, into horizon. A dusty, dead moth of a caboose, buckled over iron ore wheels. Warped, greyed— a wheeze of boards. One splintered eyebrow. One cataract eye. Your palm flattened, reaching before I can breathe the word burn, sizzling I leave you standing, fused, your wind-chapped lips cracked…
Bless the rubber band that holds night around the horizon. Bless the dry rot creeping through its tension. Bless its breaking. Bless the way the light spills out like shiny pennies from a roll. Bless the bank of days where I make my withdrawals, bless my balance in the black, bless the credit of my soul. Bless the stash of…
I don’t know when the decision-makers brought in two trailers and divided them in half to make four classrooms. They were like that when I arrived. Slapped between the main building and the ball fields, the big playground constantly beckoned to us. The bank of windows on the other side of the classroom faced the cafeteria. Isolated and tucked away…
Cayla didn’t want her boyfriend telling anyone about their mistake. Not ever. She didn’t even want to believe their mistake was real. That’s why she was up again peeing on sticks while the entire world was sleep. Her pee dripped from her body to the stick. Squeezing the stick tight, she prayed it would prove the others wrong. Hope, horror,…
1 – Philip Pearlstein, Whose Realist Nudes Revived Portraiture, Dies at 98 The other day, I found the New York Times obituary for Philip Pearlstein in a folder with the extremely unhelpful file name “Miscellaneous.” It was jammed in next to an article titled “Five Easy Exercises to Strengthen Your Abs.” Why I put it there, I don’t know. In…
Interviewed by Breen Nolan Schoen Astrid Dahl, the protagonist of Anna Dorn’s third novel, Perfume & Pain, tries to be good, but her bad behavior keeps getting in the way. Recently canceled for saying something offensive at a book reading, Dahl suffers from writer’s block and is in search of inspiration through any means necessary—including toxic relationships with the wrong…
“How about you put the phone away while we eat?” I tell Beck. My words float up, accidental question mark dangling. “Ma, it’s for school,” Beck says without looking up from under his basketball hoodie. “Besides,” he waves his hand at the empty place-setting in front of me, “are you even eating?” The three of us sit at a round…
Her name was Facetia, or so she told me anyway. I met her on Interstate 10. She was hitchhiking, maybe stranded, and I was bored and curious, on my way to New Orleans from a city across the swamp. I had picked up hitchhikers before. So it wasn’t just because she was a young woman and reasonably attractive. But those…
The stately burr oak stood deeply rooted in the center of our backyard, high up on the hillside. It shaded the patio from the midday summer sun and provided the perfect hideout for backyard games. I took its steady, reassuring presence for granted for the thirty years we lived under its canopy. When the tree’s bark started to peel, the…
חָרִיף Haifa, 1989 Philippe drizzles a greenish, garlicy hot sauce on his falafel. Between the torrid temperature and cayenne pepper paste, he is on fire. Watching him bite into the fried cumin-infused balls causes me to salivate. The thought of his thick, fleshy lips on mine creates inner heat. “Délicieux,” he says in his mother tongue. Beads of perspiration form…