Psalm for a Full Tank of Gas
by Joy Clark issue 71 Can we get someone to turn down the music? No, Sam, I am not too drunk to be standing on this chair. Don’t tell me to climb down again. Don’t act like you can’t see that I’m here. I’m here. Here I am to proclaim the fucking miracles of the […]
Cushion & Frame
by Rebecca Kuder issue 72 “Everything reminded you of what happened.” —Rachel McKibbens Everything reminds you of what happened. It powders the shelf you use as a nightstand, the shelf your daughter will someday use as a dollhouse; it snows and settles between the threads of your sheets, infiltrates the fur of your stuffed Snoopy; […]
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 […]
Toothbrushing
by Samantha Steiner issue 74 At six thirty, we push blankets off, pull sweaters on, and shuffle to the bathroom. He squeezes toothpaste onto my brush before getting his own. “Can we turn the lights off?” I ask. “Why?” “The light hurts my eyes.” He gets the switch. We click our brushes together like champagne […]
What a Good Place Now
by Alex Lemon issue 75 Anymore, there is no need To push it, to become a shadow Beneath the hurtling Sky. The mister in me Has undergone a long Treatment of quieting—I am so Gentle now, groomed to offend No mink-vest sensibility. I am nothing if not a good little Learner: the best skin stretches […]
St. George on a Cloudy Day
by Devan Collins Del Conte issue 73 Having graduated, Gage, Fletcher, and I, we felt at once very old and very young, and like we’d stay that way forever. Before we left Charleston, we’d visited the grimy apartment in Mt. Pleasant where we stocked up with a half ounce of medical-grade weed and an eight […]
Countdown to a New Year
by Katie Young Foster issue 72 10 In the bathtub, a woman reads a romance novel on her phone. 9 Two states away, a man watches the woman as she reads. The man, silent, sits in his kitchen eating a salad from Arby’s. His computer is open. On the screen: frequent flashes of green-painted toenails […]
The Empathy Chart
by Wendy J. Fox issue 74 You and I were at a party somewhere when we first met, and we had to talk about the weather, as people do. We were living in Denver, Colorado, where the mountains let out their breath and bled into the plains, and we’d long since come to accept, if […]
Night, This River
by Khanh Ha Winner of the James Knudsen Prize for Fiction issue 75 1. They came to a river town. After she brought the boat to a dock, she went up the cement steps, onto a narrow street, and into a shop shaded by a yellow awning. The boy stood up in the boat, looking […]
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 […]