The rats have eaten the grain again, and the men need a new solution. We’ve already exhausted the usual methods of dealing with rats: traps, prayers, and cats. Our town has many cats, but they simply

I know that I am going to die.

In the mornings, we watch the wagons come in a procession, rolling down the streets in one thin line.

Vermont in the summer is a place I love.

I remember when my parents first told me.

The best plastic surgeons are cultured. They stand at the intersection of art and science and are not, generally, superficial.

We never thought the calcification was a problem.

The next time Jonathan and I had a playdate I told him what had happened. I was sitting on his bed and he was sitting at his desk when he told me a secret.

If thinking your own thoughts has never brought you love, is it so bad to let another think for you?

Tennis balls were always disgusting. That creep-crawly not-green not-quite-yellow felt that made my teeth grind and my spine twitch, always wet with dog slobber. And it never lost that toxic new car

Gail is the name of the person telling this story. She thinks of herself as Gail instead of I.

I need him to walk me back to the bus, but I still know I have everything he could need if he asks for it

I painted my lips and fingers red the first time I was unfaithful. It was in college, with a girl with sharp orange hair who had a smile that said come. I never really liked her--she was arrogant and

When Rose leaves, she hands me a lamp and says, “I’m afraid it will break in the move.” She tosses a bag of Twizzlers into her Corolla. The backseat is piled with thrift store dresses and Doc Martens.

The cage was located in the back and, technically speaking, was a separate store: enclosed by chain-link fences, it housed rows of metal shelves on which were stockpiled stacks of used books. The

1.

Maybe I’m an idiot, but those waves are
talking to me. They fall apart on the beach
then recoil, and the phytoplankton glow in
their recession. That’s where I think what
they’re saying is.

It was a Sunday morning in Delta, Mississippi when the body of the missing Negro giant washed up on the bank of the river. First news of the creature’s arrival was brought to the town by a local fisherman...

I turned over in bed and felt something weird. I put my hand behind my head and felt it was the pillow. I sat up and looked at the pillow. It was wet, pinkish-red. I said holy shit a few times, ran my

Andy Carr is stocking shelves at his local Value King supermarket when a forty-year-old woman taps him on the shoulder and starts yelling in his face. By the woman’s word the store is out of stock of

As I headed north, to your border, darkness fell, and I could see only the two cones of light extending from the car’s headlamps. The road itself had no markings. It stretched into the black, a

He will present it like an offering, like an opportunity, like the whole human history of men holding out shimmery circle-shaped objects as a shorthand for a promise. You, he tells her, can play the

Lunar Flesh

Your daughter wraps her arms around your waist and asks, Does everyone have a skeleton inside? 

Already dinner is on the table. Brown rice, sticky rice, ginger duck, little saucers

I did not ask for the children. They came uninvited, as most children do, sometimes with trinkets or pets. Of their pets, the seagull is my least favorite. He is an ugly, smoke-colored creature, quite

The boy’s hair was like the sand. He looked good. They all did, bruiseless in the sun. Striped towels in primary colors lay beneath them, shovels and tilting turrets walled them in. Sonia cupped a

Moonlight hiccups through the dirty windows, jumps around on our faces as the truck hits potholes. We’re already gone, smoking cigarettes.