Jim EigoUNDERGROUND & DEATH PANEL Underground (Union Square) On the crowded subway platform a space had cleared around the couple. For reasons no passerby could ascertain, the expensively-dressed young man and woman—Wall Street by the cut of the suits, the…
Kevin Tosca“THE 104″; “TIBET”; “LIKE THAT” The 104 Two men were standing in the belly of the bus. The one with a cane—old, but not too old—approached the younger. “Should I take you there?” said the older man. The younger,…
LOCAVORE
by Kathryn Kulpa
The streets smell like fried dough and there’s the carnival sound of an outdoor mic, a tinny crackle that makes him think of Little League games and awards day at summer camp. It sounds like the end of summer. The locals are celebrating something, the patron saint of clam cakes. They’re selling raffle tickets, but he’s not buying chances. The sky is dark blue, but he’s not watching the sky. The café door is open, inviting him to a darker world of scratched wooden floors and mismatched tables and hard metal chairs: the world of Latte Girl, whose sweet smile is only for the locals, whose cups she graces with sailboats and dragonflies and long-eared dogs, while his foam never holds more than an indifferent swirl. There’s a line—there’s always a line—but he doesn’t mind. He likes to watch her tamp and pull; he likes that everything is done by hand on one old espresso machine; he likes that they are her hands, small and plump, still childish, with chipped black polish on her short fingernails. As often as he tries to touch those hands, she pulls back. Leaves the change on the counter, slides the coffee card across. But today it’s the end of August, his coffee card is full, and when she punches his last hole Latte Girl will know he’s no tourist; he’s here for the long haul.
Rachel R. TaubeWORM DIRT She found me digging up worms in my backyard. Just plopped down beside me and started wriggling herself when I found one in the freshly turned soil. Later, her mother was angry about the worm dirt…
Max McKennaGARY’S SISTER The same way we didn’t know, way back when, that mom and dad couldn’t stand their “friends, ” so we didn’t know that Gary’s sister wasn’t interested in either of us, which starts to explain why she…
Katherine Higgs-CoulthardLIFEBOAT THEORY I FIRST HEARD ABOUT LIFEBOAT THEORY WHEN TINA TOOK ECONOMICS. She stayed up late arguing with Daddy about it. The way she told it, this guy—Garrett Hardin—used it to explain why rich countries couldn’t bail out the…
Darlene P. CamposAND WE SLEPT IN A WIGWAM Getting kicked out of my house wasn’t a surprise. It happened to my ancestors, my parents, and to me several times. I lost count pretty quick. The landlord left minutes before Javier…
Michelle E. CrouchFREE COFFEE FOR ATHEISTS When we built the church, my son was fifteen. I knew him then. He was clear-eyed and steady, sawing and sanding the wood for the pews with confidence. He played football up at the…
Austin EichelbergerON LUX Janine stood watching the swing of the burnt-out light bulb that hung in the unfinished laundry room of her empty little house, the pull-chain that released volts into the socket clinking against the bulb’s brittle glass with each…
Rebecca EntelPERFECT COMPANION HOLLIE THOUGHT OF THIS AS A CONTRACT. She and Dana had promised each other they’d be the type of people who remembered things could always be worse. They toasted the tragic. “To James Dean!” “To Princess Di!”…
Keith RebecGOING RINGSIDE Elmer was in the kitchen fixing himself two eggs over easy when he heard shouting outside. He turned the burner down, went to the window. Out near his mailbox, where the children gathered to board the yellow bus,…
David SchumanSUBJECT You’re scrubbing grout in the bathroom when the old guy next door shouts through the wall. Wants to know if you’ll come over and see his paintings. He’s been bugging you ever since you moved in, convinced you’ll…
Rebecca EntelONYX Raised voices hush a room, lower eyes. But the sound of skin hitting skin. But a slap. The sound, an air-thickening sponge, slogged from one room to the next. It stilled the action in each. Heads looked away…
Michelle E. CrouchTHE CURATED HOME When maintaining the curated home, one must behave much as if were one were employed at a museum. The collections management database, however, will not exist on a computer or even on yellowed paper files.…
Martha CooneyCORMAC I was kicking my football along the road in our estate, timing my kicks to each time the curbstones changed color. They were painted in the Ireland flag’s green, white, and gold, just to let anybody foolish enough…
Elizabeth MosierEVERYTHING MUST GO “Here’s what you do,” a friend said to my husband, eyeing the dreck on our front porch, residuals from a previous sale: the single chair, incomplete set of plates, fancy dolls our daughters never played with,…
Frances BrentINTERIORS 1. I’ve been thinking about the fish in a glass bowl–loneliness, silence, wasted beauty. The fish appears in my imagination, passes through the reef hole, travels here and there—weightless and random cartridge. I watch its inch-long vanishing spur.…
Thaddeus RutkowskiENCOUNTER WITH THE DEVIL You dirty rat,” I said. I was talking to the devil himself. I spoke without trepidation, even though I was addressing a creature with horns and a pointed tail. “You don’t have a monopoly on…
Nahid RachlinZAHRA When Shamsi and her two small children moved into some rooms in my aunt’s house, they looked very poor. My aunt, the owner of the house, took pity on them and reduced the rent by 30 toomans a…
Samuel ThompsonSONATA FOR CLAVIER AND VIOLIN, K. 526 (September 2008) The day of playing with Mr. G.’s transitional bow– yes, the one that they used in Mozart’s time– is fresh in my psyche as I work to taper and bloom,…
John GreyTHE GAME’S LAST BREATH Transfusions come and go like players off the bench. This drip is offense. This pill is defense. He’s sleepy in the middle of the day. Why speak to visitors, when a coma’s on offer? For…
Michael Neal MorrisWAKING The straps at the top of the mask cut a little into his forehead. The top of his skull seemed to be burning, and for a silly moment he wondered if he had any hair left. Of…
Beth KephartSCRABBLE I said it would be nice (look how simple I made it: nice) not to be marooned in the blue-black of night with my thoughts, I said the corrugated squares of the downstairs quilt accuse me, I said…
Katherine FallonGIN A JUNIPER SLICK Gin a juniper slick, drain-bound, spilled by the wrist that meant it this time. The glass-floor desert, the sugared rim, glister in cloud-gauze sunlight. To win, to be as cold and lasting as the snow.…
Lynn LevinTHE ASK SANDWICH The TSA lady at Newark Airport had a nice touch, and Josie enjoyed the pat down. The blue gloves slid under her arms, along her sides, down one leg, then the other. They searched, discerned. They…
Anna StrongDEAR COUCH Dear Couch, I want to zip myself in a pocket and watch baseball. You say sit down and stop moving the furniture around. A square of light hits my palm from the gap in the curtain teeth…
Rachel PastanBONES Once, they’d read aloud to each other all the time: letters, menus, fliers posted on telephone poles along the streets. Missing dog, black, one white ear, answers to Shayna. For sale, stereo cabinet, some damage. Telugu lessons, $10…
Blake MartinThe Rise of the Selfie in the 21st Century Click on any photo to see it at full size. Why do we take self-portraits? As someone who has always felt the urge to take pictures of myself, I don’t…
Kathryn J Allwine BacasmotHUMMING Listening to Glenn Gould’s albums of Bach’s keyboard music, you will hear a noise in the background: the sound of someone humming. As a child I gravitated toward the Gould recording on the shelf that held…