“No small sensation has been made by the report of a duel between two ladies. . . . The [disagreement] was regarded as so serious that it could only be settled by blood.” —Pall Mall Gazette, August 23, 1892 We call it an emancipated duel—the duelists, seconds,...
She gets off the bus at the tenth stop. She walks one mile. She walks 280 more feet. She pays in damp cash from the cup of her bra, curled and crunched, soft with the smell of agua de violetas and sweat. Like a baby’s head. The man at the desk smiles, his maw a...
I place Sygna, my late husband's silver swan, into a box in the attic. She keeps me awake all night with her furious metallic din, an unyielding crash-clang of protest. Next morning I surrender and put her back next to his photo on the desk. Sygna quietens, shifts her...
Word count 762 | Reading Time 3 Minutes, 4 Seconds At a lecture given by Kathy Fish and KB Carle on the topic of flash fiction, the perennial question about word counts came up. Fish said if a story is getting close to the 800-900-word count mark, she pauses to...
Aunt Sylvia says it’s nothing, but she coughs wicked and that’s when I know it’s coming.Death. We never talk about anything but Judge Judy and how dumb those people are,airing out their nasty shit on television when they could be your neighbors, and then howdo they...
It started out small—a red speck hardly noticed on the Harlem sidewalk. Maybe it drifted down from the heavens. Maybe a bird scavenged it from Central Park. Maybe it grew from a crack in the concrete. However it came to be, passers-by stepped over it without a glance,...
Being A Girl in Someone Else’s Story In workshop, writing a girl protagonist was difficult. We just don’t like her, I heard a lot about perfectly ordinary women who were maybe a little bit selfish, a little obtuse. There’s something about her, I heard about girls who...
When you cook you use every pot, including ones that can’t go in the dishwasher, because I clean; when I cook, you poke my Brussels sprouts with your fork, pronounce them “mushy,” and push aside your plate. You call my favorite show “aristoporn.” On Saturday, you...
In my language people call it ‘slippery fetus’, cannot be held, unravels like ribbon. You are ‘slippery daughter’, will not be held, all over the floor. Wear colors, no more gray, you are almost see-through. Eat more ginger, less salt, no tears. Take showers not baths...
Mom gets them out of Skokie when Laila is four. She talks about endless troops of kids and dead ends no matter which way you turn. Dad directs the operation of packing furniture, dishes, clothes, while Mom smokes with the neighbors and bitches if moving men come near...
Each night, my soul flutters out of its husk and wanders between the stars. Through sheets of laterite and palm leaves, my people dance and clap along with the rhythm of ebony drums. They twirl, dusty feet hovering above the ground as mothers sing. The masquerades...
Shrapnel bores out of Daddy when he chops too much wood. They float to a place near his spine and Momma fishes them out with tweezers and a needle. Shrapnel bits don’t look like bullets. Sometimes they look like hominy, sometimes like baby teeth. They’ve been coated...