What Lot’s Wife Said Photograph by Daria Volkova New Year’s Eve, 2020 turn back and you’ll turn to salt— there is only ash and the lick of flame along your hip the body’s a pillar in darkness, skin white as a moon and a crescent of bone like the arc of a bow pulled taut […]
When They Come for You Photo by Thomas Millot Police came through with a loudspeaker and said everyone needed to be out by 9 a.m., or else face arrest. [This despite] a ruling by the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that was effectively sustained by the US Supreme Court in December declar[ing] that […]
Parable Photo by Enguerrand Blanchy One summer, two kookaburras mated on a power line, extinguishing light in a thousand homes. Stories say the female opened her wings and touched two wires. Closing the circuit. Making, of her body, a conductor. And his, attached to hers. Witnesses gaped at brilliant flashes, cacophony like drums. The birds, […]
Rhinoceros Ridge Photo by Nacho Domínguez Argenta “You remind me of my brother,” I tell Ricky. We’re making out on the grass behind the cellar. Rocks dig beds into my knees, stationed on either side of Ricky’s ips. Far away, but not far enough, I hear the stray dogs howl. “Don’t be gross,” he says, […]
Photograph by Edwin Chen When and why did I first start doing all in my power to avoid being inside an elevator? Maybe things felt overcrowded in the womb, with my twin in there too, or I got into a tight spot as a toddler and people took a while to notice. In my grander […]
On Seeing a Phasma Gigas Photo by Michael Eisen 1 In adamant clarity, in an acrylic cube, the one called phasma or ghost, difficult to see on its native bark, compels and says I am, repels and says I am. Which camouflage is which? Stunned by extravagant repugnance, by alien symmetry, I study its mottled […]
Blood Flower Photo by kanegen Sometimes my gentle father texts me warnings or jokes, or waterbird photos from his walk around the lake in central Florida. Once, my father texted me what to do if an elephant charges me: watch its ears. If they are pinned back, apparently you have seconds before it attacks. Just […]
Provisions Photo by Pedro The courier asked if I was back but he knows I refuse to harvest. I only collect, marred by yellow wages and groves and writing waves of mercy, heat, or radio. I tend, in fact, to catch fractions to avoid storms of light, my fault lines. The courier relies on moths […]
One Bad Night in San José, Costa Rica Winner of the 2021 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction Selected by T. Geronimo Johnson Photo by Marco Verch Audio: Danny Theimann reads his work. 1. The mother In our neighborhood, minor drug dealers pay campanas to run through the streets and sing warning songs of the police. […]
The Spirit Cabinet Anthemion Her grandparents had spoken “a foreign tongue,” she recalled, but she couldn’t say which one. When I pressed for more, my grandmother would grow glum and dour, as if she were resisting prosecution. I took a picture of her the last day I visited her apartment. Her cat is in the […]