Letter from the Editor Vallie Lynn Watson __________ Confession: I didn’t know what boudin was until about six months ago, when I learned that one of the perks of my wonderful new gig teaching in the MFA program at McNeese State University (Lake Charles, LA) was inheriting the relatively-new magazine…

Stump Sudha Balagopal __________ I discover the collapsed saguaro in our yard on the day my daughter, Pia, must leave for college. The thirty-foot cactus lies splayed across desert landscaping.  Cactus wrens nested inside the saguaro. The gooey insides of their eggs now stick to weeds, shell fragments spread, scattered…

A Widow Angela Ball __________ After her husband died, at the age of fifty-five, she stayed on in their apartment, a spacious third-floor one-bedroom. The building was behind a church, and it was possible to climb out of the kitchen window onto a large, flat section of its roof. For…

Musky Honeysuckle Richard Boada __________ We needed a place to stay for the night and a ride from the pizza place that was closing. There were no taxis, and we didn’t have a map of this quiet town. We could see the Seine and smell wet grass and flowers and…

New Developments Randall Brown __________ We went off the beaten path, one spring dawn, ten years before, the purple crocuses opening their unhurried mouths and the fresh birch buds brightening into a suffused gold. Down the far-off lane, the garbage man shouted “Ahoy!,” his call bouncing off the gilded train…

Howard Johnson’s End Paul Corman-Roberts __________ The single seat counter has now become the longest bar in this dying train depot of a town. In the middle of the floor is one of those circular stone fire pits where a fake fire would warm a fake hearth, an oasis among…

Trench Coat Sherrie Flick __________ After hours her high school has an other-worldly glow. Later the memory of it would remind Natalie of an art museum at night—the glass and polished floors, the distinct silence after a bustling day. But on this night she has not yet been to an…

Houses of Rain Tiff Holland __________ I woke up happy, or he said I did. He said I wasn’t myself, that I smiled at everyone, that I called the nurses “honey.” Most likely, this was the drugs, but I don’t remember, and he didn’t say if I woke up like…

True Love Len Kuntz __________ For their tenth anniversary, his wife grew a moustache.  Like a patch of dirt, seeded with grass kernels, it took a while to fill in. The husband eyed her suspiciously, said, “If you want to disappear, well, then, I guess you should just go already.”…