I trace a line from the top of her forehead to the tip of her nose, a peachy pink so delicate it has the silken texture of a rose petal at the peak of its bloom. Her tiny lips pucker, and her fingers flex open, revealing a hand in its most miniature form, more doll…
Your best friend, Meg, is scared for you. She wants to accompany you to the lake, but you need to be alone, so you drive there and wander the aspen grove, leaves trembling in the light wind. You touch the smooth, greenish-white bark, the rough, eye-shaped branch scars. You hold your hand among the leaves,…
The uranium bird has been picking seeds from my lawn. It’s easy to tell where it’s been; it leaves behind a trail of brown, wilted grass or shriveled tree leaves. It lives somewhere near the end of the road near the brook, I think. I’ve seen it there when I’ve been out jogging, marbled bright…
No More Needs to be Said: An Interview with Robert Shapard
Robert Shapard’s collection, Bare Ana and Other Stories, will be released by Regal House Publishing in February. Winner of the 2022 W.S. Porter Prize, this full-length collection brings to life an array of flash and short-short stories that are by turns delightful and heartrending. Readers might have high expectations of a book by such a…
The Hunt
We were in search of eggs. White ones like the moon, and some as big as newborn puppies in the palm. Biking wasn’t smart because you’d miss the little things hiding in the weeds and bushes, placed out there for us wives to find. It was the daddies of our men who told them what…
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