SHORT STORIES
Graftings by Stella Lei
Hunger never came naturally to me. As a baby, I didn’t cry for milk, preferring to gaze at the mold-splashed ceiling and grab at dust motes, twining my tiny hands through their light. Elaine told me this was because…
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And a Single Day by Randy William Santiago
We shall leave, for remembrance, one rusty iron heart. The city’s rusty heart, that holds both the hustler and the square. Takes them both and holds them there. For keeps and a single day. —Nelson Algren, Chicago: City on…
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Always with You by Robert Maynor
Document I: Letter from S. Bethany Dear Father Sister, Mother, Lover who art in Heaven Home, Hell, Hotel, Hospital When you find this, please: Load me like a bullet in the chamber of your gun. Lay me by your…
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Veil of the Cross by Caitlin Rae Taylor
We wanted to feed the bees. We wanted this privilege every year, but only when we were blanketed safely in the hills. We wanted something small and threatening to need us, so we could decide whether it deserved our…
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Suckling by Neeru Nagarajan
Content Warning—miscarriage, childbirth I wake up to a uterus on the pillow next to mine. It looks vaguely like the image I saw on the pamphlet when I was browsing for birth control. I close my eyes again. The dull,…
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Strawberries by Matt Zandstra
They were calling it Glitch Tuesday. “A woman menaced by a jackhammer,” said the radio. “It’s all hitting the fan today,” Philip said. He bit into a slice of toast. Julia had woken to the sound of a car…
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Night Air by Willa Zhang
One night in college, my roommate Anna and I walked home together from the bus stop. We’d gone downtown to watch a movie, which turned out to be pretty good, and then eaten at a taco truck, which turned…
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Ugly by Leesa Fenderson
Ugly, ain’t it? The whole fuck of it. The way the doctor’s fingers patted the rim of skin on Mummy’s concave chest. The twin rims where she, Doctor Small Tits, had cut off Mummy’s two breasts, golden brown to…
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Just the Thing For a Day Like This by Cyn Nooney
Marshall is in his office, and he says to please get the wretched dogs to stop barking. He’s preparing for a call, an important call. It’s hot, above ninety, margarita-with-salt weather but I’m nursing so you know what that…
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The Sand Nests by Emma Sloley
Only two days have passed since they were banished to the boat but already the summer’s inevitable fractiousness has made itself apparent. They know there is always this period of adjustment, this is their sixth year now under this…
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