They drink like frat boys on spring break, like frat boys on game day. They drink like frat boys in the movies. But they are not frat boys, not yet, and it’s a Monday night three weeks into their first semester. Each drink builds unity, helps them forget the hazing at dinner. . . .
Read More
A child walks the familiar road.A body is found at the mile mark.Still they do not suspect foul play.Still they say she was Not Afraid.—from “Girls Are Coming Out of the Water,” Volume 61, Issue 4 (Winter 2020) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.The first poem . . .
Read More
This all happened in one of those good stretches of years, a time I like to call Pax Smiley. It wasn’t as bad as the Navy, or the six years I spent at Lino Lakes and various country lockups across the state of Wisconsin. I had that house at the end of . . .
Read More
You don’t just get to decide to start eatin again, it happens slow,a groggy crawl and stumble out of a dream.I didn’t choose to starve mysel,I didn’t choose to stop. It was a cycle, my own metamorphosis—from “‘Eating like a Bird, It’s Really a Falsity,’” Volume 61, Issue 4 (Winter 2020) Tell . . .
Read More
dá’ák’ehdi dá’át’ąą yiighaad yéego dootł’izh ‘iiná yiłNiłtsą́ Bi’áád yiilzhoł shádi’aah dę́ę́—from “dá’ák’ehdi (in the cornfield),” Volume 61, Issue 4 (Winter 2020) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.I attended a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) boarding school from tenth grade until graduation. It was one of those schools that . . .
Read More
“Jim,” she said. He turned to her. He was sitting on the couch in the living room, that same sinking couch that had belonged to his parents, as had the house. She was in the kitchen making something to eat. They had been out late the night before, and had woken up . . .
Read More
The first day of their year arrived four weeks later than the rest of the world’s. Or, perhaps, the rest of the world’s year had simply started forty-eight weeks early. In either case, the day was marked by great occasion: work and study were suspended for a week to accommodate cross-country travel . . .
Read More
of a totaled car? Disc five there once,the library lectures-on-tape (Daily Life in the Ancient World)however fog-socked-in shattered day of arrival. But arrival: that would be the Present waitin for a Future to soothe—from “Is the Past What’s Left in the Glove Compartment,” Volume 61, Issue 3 (Fall 2020) Tell us about . . .
Read More
For three hours I’ve been thrusting my body past the breaking waves on the northernmost beach in Tel Aviv, where the surfers go, and the lifeguards keep calling—little girl! Little girl, come back!—when I move just outside the border marked by red and white plastic lines tied to metal poles sunk into . . .
Read More
Often we bledafterwards.A seep highin the nostrils,then red. Orour heads pounded& we sleptfor hours in darkrooms, waitedfor our thoughtsto unbrick.—from “Effluvium,” Volume 61, Issue 3 (Fall 2020) Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.The first story I ever wrote was a near-total plagiarism of “Popcorn” by Frank Asch. If . . .
Read More