Selections from Serotine
I am writing with my burnt hand about the nature of fire.Ingeborg Bachmann She put the stones inside her vagina. . She put the stones inside her vagina. One by one she…
Three Elegies for the Cockroach Islands
(Located in the mouth of the Little Manatee River, they extend southward along the shore of Tampa Bay).At first, a fish, darting and feeding in the roots of the red…
The Bone Tree
I was about to turn thirteen the summer the bones showed up. I didn’t know Maria Grabowski or her grandfather, because they lived farther out than the rest of us,…
Rosbespierre guillotinant le bourreau français après avoir fait guillot[r] tous les français. Date de création: vers 1794. Numéro d’object: CARG025919.
Jack and the Candlestick
The Executioner was tall. They say his whole family is that way. I stood by the ale shop, watching him weave through the crowd, his goose-neck swinging above everyone else.…
Piper Tomahawk
04/21/1974Dad took us to the airfield today. He talks about his time in the war flying and it is boring boring boring. Jamie is the only one of us who…
Great Existential Dread
I could always tell, down to my wispy ether, that there was something more to death than what we could see. I don’t simply mean that there’s something beyond my…
Blue Monday
On the last day of their friendship, two weeks before graduation, Kaitlynn Morin is intercepted outside of chemistry class by Erica Neufeld, who spins her around from behind and yells,…
Echo, Shadow, Ether, Mirrorlight
(Trigger warning: rape / misogyny) This is how the caecillion enters you. First, he drums his fingers very lightly at the door of your heart. From inside, you look up,…
My Personal Abortion Story
It’s personal. How could it not be? I was 14 years old. In 1973, abortion had recently become legal in Minnesota. I didn’t know that. What I knew is that…
That Witch Beneath Us Lies
Mr. and Mrs. Woodall snuggled together in the orange vinyl chair in front of their hover-screen as they waited for the latest public service announcement. The PSAs changed on the…