Delicate Gods • A Dollar for Every Crow
Delicate GodsWhen I close my eyes, somehow I still smell the encyclopedia pages, carpetand pencil, smudging into the crossing valleysof my palm—not knowing every word, but feelingthem heavy with meaning,…
Sweet Sixteen
for Sheena Melanie filled a rocks glass with ice cubes, splashed a jigger of chilled vodka over the ice, then filled the glass to the rim with ruby…
Golden Boy, Don’t Act Like You Were Kind
It was summer when I checked in at the Brundage House; now there's snow. Outside in the parking lot, holding a protein drink in a polystyrene cup and a paper…
The Precision of Red
Dr. Khan’s stomach swoops down rapidly at the sight of Tanya; he doesn’t find her to be a woman that he would have had any particular comment on before. Maybe…
Until the End of a Sentence
Steam rises from fried lizard skins, synth burgers and vats of fermented worm tea, like fickle specters in the rain-cloaked night. Rally Cyan zigzags between the stalls, a small shadow…
The Appraisal
Mike almost beheads me on our third date. The wildly swung axe lies dead at my feet, freshly ricocheted from a target board hanging twenty yards away.“This’ll be a great…
Eugene
They found him by the railroad tracks the year the stock market crashed. It was in Sabina, a town twenty miles north of Ohio’s Appalachian foothills. Sabina was (and still…
Admissions
The essays arrive in waves.Cheerful waves.Each begins with something like I have always wanted… Wanting is a credential. The present is a well. The essay is a ladder. The applicants…
The First Phone Call in 7 Months • Subdivisions
The First Phone Call in 7 MonthsYour voice arriving from the base where you are stationed overseas, a drawl of Carolina lapsing to a yawn. The distance yawning, too, a…