My People
By Isabelle Mongeau Issue 78 My mother wouldn’t look at me. She washed my father’s yogurt bowl in the sink, her back to me, while I fidgeted in the doorway. The words screamed in my mind: Turn around, goddammit. Won’t you hug me? Won’t you say something? Mom, please. Please. The plea died as she […]
I Prefer the Praying Mantis
by Heather Rounds issue 77 In 2004 my mother and I bent spoons sitting in a circle with 15 other women on the floor of Reverend Anne’s tiny pink Victorian, in the Spiritualist village of Lily Dale, New York. “Tonight you are capable,” Reverend Anne said, patting her loud red hair. She opened the night […]
Sand Dunes
by Amy Kolen issue 76 Though it’s only late morning, the sun has already burned off the clouds in the thin air, leaving the snow-capped Sangre de Cristo Mountains as brief white blazes in the sea of blue sky. Behind me, Medano Creek, one of the waterways that seasonally flows through the Dunes, creating, in […]
Foreign Bodies
by Gulchin A. Ergun issue 67 It’s the end of a busy weekend, but I’m the gastroenterologist covering seven doctors, so hectic is what I expect. Sixty rings and beeps, fifty-three follow-ups, and twelve new consults claimed my attention in the past fifty-one hours. So it is 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, and I leave the […]
Helen Frankenthaler, My Mother, and the Properties of Art
by Sarah Van Arsdale issue 70 It was in a cold mid-December that I had the dream. I dreamed I was in a cave. It was surprisingly well-appointed, with Oriental rugs strewn on the ground and benches carved out of the cave walls. Around me, piles of my mother’s things—boxes of her diaries, and letters, […]
How I Lost My Mind
by Emerson Henry issue 71 He was the first lover I’d had who only knew me as Emerson; everyone before him had met me as my former self, a girl unsure of her body and desires. The year before I’d come out as non-binary; now, at the beginning of my senior year of college, I […]
The Imperfect Aquarist
by Laura Jackson RobertsA Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021 issue 73 When a betta fish reaches the sunset of his life, he doesn’t drop dead. Rather, he withdraws, sinking to the bottom of his tank as his energy slips away. It’s the fish way. I’ve never seen a fish keel over from a heart […]
10 Ways to Watch a Train
by Ysobel Gallo issue 75 1. The compressed air horn shatters the air by the waiting traffic. My blind brother leans against the metal fence, holding his sound recorder just over the edge, extended. His whole body is taut, his face lifted, listening. The rattle of rails and the clank of chained cars. The whoosh and […]