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In the small hours of the morning, I forage, taking care to nibble leaves both fibrous and tender, for the…

“He’s bleeding out!” These words stampede through the air, disembodied from their owner. “Somebody help him!” I stand on the…

We went to the museum, but we didn’t see anything good. We sat on a long bench under the great…

In the first month of the year after the holiday season she felt out of sorts (the season she got…

In 2023, the island known in County Kerry as the Sleeping Giant, named for its resemblance to a man lying…

The giant orb in the night sky makes our friend’s house look like a doll’s house. One of us mentions…

My son…he’s a good boy. I hug him as often as I can. Casey is almost five now, but he’s…

When the first of the last coughs come, I take my father to the sea. I know he likes it…

We were sitting in the stadium waiting for the Face. It came at 6:45, right-center field, or that’s what I’d…

Look at their body language: Henry grips the wheel with his left hand while the other chops at the air.…

I was in her backyard, the tiny fenced-in yard behind an extravagant Brooklyn brownstone. I had the baby, Violet, in…

The lingering perfume of a million flowers is so thick in the funeral home showroom that invisible rose petals plaster…

I watch her pocket two Snickers bars while I’m ringing up the guy who always buys a can of Skoal…

We put our seed in the ground and buried a body, but the land gave us nothing in return for…

In the bottom of Zadie’s purse, as she sits in a lightly upholstered chair at the DMV to get her…

Beatriz had been insisting since waking that we go to the house at the top of our road, on the…

My father tells all three of us to write a eulogy and he’ll decide who gets to deliver theirs at…

There are six of them. No, seven. They cycle out of the tower and into the night, following their headmistress.…

Transformation magic is easy. Gold into straw, carriages into pumpkins: the witch had done it a thousand times before. The…

When I meet her, I say all the wrong things first. Wind the beautiful. Hair is yours. Meet me nice.…

On the morning of her last day alive, Tía Reina awoke with a halo of bright pink aligning her forehead.…

The astronaut pushes a wire cart through the supermarket. Their body is obscured beneath the thick, radiation-proof fabric. Their face…

1. The fourth-grade mothers learn that one of the fourth-grade girls, Jade, is missing. Their sons and daughters announce this…

My daughter’s walking me through her sandcastle. She brings me in through the garage weight room, which opens up into…

After she gave birth, she could hardly sleep because she was either leaking milk or blood, or both at the…

Clouds like spores riding the gusts of wind, still raining, no beach today. We’re lying on the couch together, heads…

When I grew breasts, I stopped taking the bus to school. Instead I walked along the edge of the wetlands…

Let’s say they believed her. Let’s say she was born into a different age. That she wasn’t the one who…

We carry out the unction for our aging father on the dining room table, anointing him with a variety of…

I ran over a nightjar with my car. It wasn’t my fault—it sat there roosting in the right lane of…

For two years now, Leonard’s wife hasn’t wanted to have sex with him. He figures it might have to do…

The third store we visit has been raided. The shelves are like rows of gapped teeth—missing flashlights, missing batteries, missing…

Here is what you’ll bring to grandmother’s house:

I know something is wrong when the spot in the corner of my right eye won’t go away. I was…

“Sit sideways,” the photographer says, “or you won’t fit.” Obediently, they turn, bare flesh sliding smoothly against the porcelain, and…

Last stop on the LL line. Subway platform outdoors, a track on each side. A green-lit bulb above each track.…

Every thought and prayer was answered. Everything reversed. The news crews packed their vans with cameras and microphones, and the…

As she kills the flies, Gloria asks for mercy, then sprays an insecticide that sticks to the walls for weeks.…

That story you’ll never tell is the house on the street in every Seventies horror movie you devoured in the…

The summer I babysat the Brady twins, their parents were on the brink of divorce. My parents were on the…

Sundance Lee draped his old snagging blanket around his shoulders. It hadn’t snagged anyone for many years. His legs were…

First it was the little porcelain dogs with green glass eyes. Each one in various uniforms. A policeman bulldog, a…

And because the house was filled with comfortable things, you wondered. As your wife slept under the perfect thread count,…

One morning, as I stood at the bus stop waiting for the 7:05, my neighbor, Horowitz, drove over my left…

She begins each morning by peeling the dead skin off her lips. Sometimes, she feels like she is shucking corn…

I drove to the county hospital to pick up my mother. She was not as I suspected. They handed her…

The pretty cowgirl’s mouth is wild with tameless laughter, and the tassels on her calfskin miniskirt and waistcoat dance to…

Spirits. Toria doesn’t speak German, but no language is necessary. Her voice melodious with children or men, she tilts her…

Kate knew it would not work with Ethan when she watched him remove the thinly sliced circles of candied lemon…

# Freddie goes missing overnight on a Sunday. That week is a blur of search parties and candlelight vigils, porch…

That July, all our dreams were bones. T-rex bones, kneecap bones, bones larger than our house, bones of a dinosaur…

The paper clips look like angels if you bend them a certain way. We wear them reverently or as reverently…

In this future, my mistakes as a parent—the ones my friends told me not to beat myself up about—they make…

A new pair of underwear arrives in the mail on the 14th of every month. The subscription service delivers on…

I pick up stuff. Things others left behind. Scarves, mittens, dollar bills, pens, rings. And I cannot describe what it…

Ma has a third thumb. It hangs from her pocket when she thinks no one’s looking, drags behind her as…

I get to relive one day. That’s all. For me, a crash ended everything, but the full range of trauma…

Character and Expression class. Monday. A black box theater. The teacher clutches her cross pendant, “We must be looking above…

We bury Lil Fucker facing north in the frozen yard, halfway between the dogwood tree and the rusted tin shed,…

But not really. It’s a nickname, something my sister used to call me. You wouldn’t know my real name. He…

In the time that my mother has been missing, the skies have turned a gray, roiling mass. The radio is…

Does Love exist? Is fat meat greasy? Cuz ain’t no way I could’ve fallen so hard, so fast, so far,…

One day Neela will run inside and steal me away. The other wigs roll their eyes. They smell the hope…

The traveler isn’t lonely. The ghosts of dead oceans joined the ship soon after the first onion sprouted in the…

I find my boyfriend’s car parked in front of the Hillside Motel and consider shattering the windows or, at least,…

Step into the Mexican restaurant together, you beautiful protagonists. Shake the drops off your umbrellas. Wouldn’t’ve guessed it from the…

Mei turns into a flower whenever we touch. Her pupils blossom into glossy hibiscuses—hues of red and peach and white.…

I’m giving Kayode Last-Name-Pending a pretty accomplished blowjob in the back of my rented Subaru when Jesus Christ returns. He’s…

Someone picks at her nail polish. Someone keeps checking her phone. Someone complains it’s too hot; someone asks how much…

On the highway at night, every other car is filled with ghosts. (you could be a ghost, too, if you…

If I could, I would pray, but God has no use for a girl like me. “Non mi tange.” During…

He left his scent behind. It melted into pillows, sheets, and shirts crumpled onto the floor. It even soaked into…

The Lifeline operator refuses to take my call when she realises I’m already dead. I tell her my name, and…

We’re having a late lunch, five women, widows now, who have been meeting once a month for forty years. “Dress-up…

On the line, I run a double-forklift. It’s a lot like a regular forklift, but the forks both spread out…

I stand at the kitchen window, calculating the parabolic arc a murmuration of birds makes against the ridge of conifers.…

It was supposed to be chess club, but instead, it was Gambler’s Anonymous, and that’s what you get in Moline.…

In science class, Margot teaches them about the magic of snow. “Evaporation, condensation, deposition,” she says. On the whiteboard she…

When I go in, the sink is bursting with unwashed dishes coated with moldy leftover scraps, half-filled glasses, cups that…

Marvin’s tumor is the size of an unshelled walnut. His doctor, who wears bile-colored Crocs, has told Marvin and Marvin’s…

The shades are pulled down by Mick before the summer sunsets. Mick is a regular: he spends every day, open…

Kerry found a hundred-dollar bill at the gas station near pump three. It was covered in oil. She carried the…

It wasn’t a date exactly. He said, “Do you want to see a dead body?” I said yes.  I would…

We want your very best work! Writers at every stage of their career are encouraged to submit, but we want…

The wolves are out again. I can hear them, their hollow wails in the pines, slicing through a storm of…

It is not an air raid. Above the city’s steepled church-tops the two planes break from the clouds. Sunlit rain…

I didn’t have any theater experience, but when I saw the ad for background actors for a local play, I…

One Sunday morning, I wake up to discover that both of my daughters have turned into birds. The younger—a tow-headed…

It was the year the flood washed a parade of homes downriver. They called it a rain bomb. Kate’s home…

Yes, I saw something. I was making my regular Friday night sauce-and-cheese sandwich. It’s like pizza on an Italian bread.…

“The air on Mars—what there is of it—is leaking away,” he said. “About half a pound a second sputtering into…

●Suit jacket and pants. White shirt. ●Brown knit tie, too narrow, too long. ●Pocket square, folded and stapled into shape.…

Unsecured in the back seat, I stretched my legs out where my sibling usually sat next to me, preaching about…

“The letter opener?” I said to my husband in the middle of the night. “I panicked,” he said, rolling the…

But now there are only two brothers and one moon. At the end of my seven-day shift, I hang the…

Her name was on the Literature of Mathematics & Economics conference roster, attendee badge plucked from the folding table by…

Monday I am reading to Emmeline a story about a man who had no DNA. He had severe radiation damage…

My husband owns a German bisque doll from the late 1800s. Her name is Clarisa. She has delicate blonde curls…

Her head was found perpendicular to the lake. The sight almost eventuated a myocardial infarction, that’s a heart attack to…

All winter, Grandpa seems frailer, like he’s entering a final phase. His living room’s cluttered, he hasn’t shaved, and we…

Mother says her voice is a visitor in the theater of her throat. The play must not be splendid, she…

After twenty-five years and an hour of cash bar drinks, the ballroom-sized venue is stuffed with chatter and assessment. From…

At the General Store, a cashier said, “No, we don’t sell food,” so we asked if she had candy or…

I would like someone to haunt my house and simulate some of my deceased husband’s habits, so I can get…

Ann and Andy have a small, quiet apartment. They live tucked into a nook in a towering building, which is filled…

1. You are six, and your brother is four. The sun is so bright compared to the lush New Jersey…

there is no romantic connecticut the text says, but I don’t take this as rejection. I don’t blame autocorrect. I…

Boy, on the night your mother brought you into this noisy, miserable world, at exactly 11:18 pm, on a rainy…

On the school bus you should have seen them, monkeying around about wheels, bottles of non-alcoholic beers, Rock-Paper-Scissor, two kids…

Alison was a cheerleader, and the second-prettiest girl in our class. These qualities seemed extremely important to us at the…

It was our first once-a-month grandmother-granddaughter date at the JCC. I hopped on the treadmill while you did Jazzercise, all…

You meet him at your niece’s birthday party, where the kids run feral, coked-up on pink juice and icing. While…

Write down your goals for tomorrow. Write down your goals on a small pocket-sized notepad so that you can take…

The whole bird lay naked on the cutting board. Iris had received the wooden board as a wedding present. It…

There was a lot of dust on them mens. Me, keepin’ off the wooden sidewalk while keeping an eye, a…

The foam pillow, one of several retrieved from his parent’s house after the sale, smelled of Bengay. Meant for the…

In a blur, a blind of grass, the horse. Dunes. At your right, ocean collapsing on the edge of Virginia.…

From her window seat on the train, Ruth watches the cluster of teenage boys on the platform. They posture in…

Agnes rocked us in her boat. Cradled between waves, we were sleepy. She sang a song from her deepest throat:…

It is my job to gag her. Mike and some of the others have her pinned to the ground. The…

Mom and I got really into the arcade claw machine one elementary school summer. Handful of tokens, a frappé from…

Mom flosses me every night with my limbs starfished across the kitchen counter and my head hanging off the edge.…

When Mamá’s apron catches fire, my first reaction is to grab Mamá’s body and share the fire with her. Pimientos…

We’re having lunch at the faux restaurant. My mom is eating her fish at a glacial pace, and I’ve moved…

A shrimp’s heart is in its head. You used to say your heart was in your stomach when you couldn’t…

The hole drinks the grass, the leaves, the twigs, and our favorite park bench. Insatiable. Thirsting. It then drinks the…

When you start needing a place to scream, you try most of the rooms in the house. You start with…

Two-lane rural route to the boatyard, boondocks enough for hoedowns, cross-burnings, not that I knew much about either, except they…

My sister turns her key in the lock and pushes. The door moves a handbreadth. Mum croaks from the living…

They say she’ll do anything for a tenner. She’s fourteen. She lives in the trailer park across from the river.…

Maybe I was twenty-one or so, somewhere around there, young anyway, and I don’t remember much about where this all…

The love story starts here. I am dreaming of Orlando Bloom when I’m awakened by an icy poke into my…

This is the third year that she has haunted me. She is pale and slightly shimmery, as if brushed with…

The other moms at the beach are skinny and sharp, all oiled angles and monochromatic bikinis. Mira and I don’t…