Ted is portly, twenty-six, and uncomfortable in an old blue blazer, gold and blue striped tie and gray dress slacks. The blazer is too...

I’ll stop listening to the news, instead listen to the birds, their wings and the wind and how it edges doors open. I’ll wake up at dawn...

I lost you but found you. Hope. I hope you’re much better. I hope you know who I am. I hope I’ll be a better stranger, lover, daughter,...

Mia flicked the cigarette butt into the air, burning end, a cancerous firefly, drunk on the night air. The boy, four years younger, and...

The truth is, you were better in the imagination. Staring out a window watching snow fall into caverns. The truth is I never wanted this...

Leigh Chadwick thinks bed is good. She says, Bed is where people should be when they should be in bed. Adrienne Barrios tries to nod with...

Leigh Chadwick listens to “Step” by Vampire Weekend while driving to the Orange Hat. She’s two miles south of Clinch River when she sees...

1 tbsp oil 1 large onion 4 cloves garlic 2-3 medium carrots 1 turnip, elderly 500g pack lamb mince large splash Worcester sauce 2 tins of...

You have come to call her Mama, this water. Today she is high and rising still, ornery in the midday sun, carrying trees that stood tall...

A book called “Conversational Korean,” pages dog-eared and worn, and we wondered if you would have insisted that your friends call you...

The home is those animals who eat and keep trying. Two parents, a little sister, the trusted friendship of crimson azaleas. The hearth is...

1. The woman looks ridiculous with opera gloves and sunglasses on indoors. She makes a kissing noise to a tiny, ghost-white schnauzer...

When John and I tried to make rocket fuel in my basement lab, we ground up sodium chlorate and sugar, and it blew up. Pieces of the glass...

In the flat and dusty nowhere between two glorious somewheres, dust lacquered our shoes, conditioned our hair, desiccated the skin we...

In the beginning I am not sure what to say so, I nod at you. * The earth is altered forever, trying to shift from one foot to two. * You...

Tonight the moon rings against my teeth like cast-iron played with a mallet. I hold my imaginary life out over a hard clay roof and shake...

For James Tate The war was not real. The war did not take my head off. The war was never in the streets. The war as a mask. The war was a...

Aintab, Turkey: 1915 Crouched behind a wagon, my great-grandmother, only 12, can smell benzine, burning hair — shouts of hungry men, lust...

Audrina’s brother will insist what happened to her was an accident. He knew his sister too well. In quiet moments, their mother will...

wake from summer’s sleep to rosehip frost and cold blue skies shirt cuffs stained with linseed oil door frame swollen in overnight rain...