A Thornbush’s Embrace Missy Nieveen Phegley __________ I find much joy in riding bikes, and I frequently imagine my kids sharing my love of riding as we go on all kinds of cycling adventures. So, one day when my five-year-old asked to ride her bike, I stopped what I was…
Read MoreNo One Says the C-Word at the Comprehensive Cancer Center Mikki Aronoff __________ You haul your ass and your cancer over for your one o’clock—the cancer your newly uninvited passenger, all grunt and elbows jostling for space smack dab in the middle of you, this bully breed, unruly teen (mercy,…
Read MoreMidnight in the Valley of Spam Steve Almond __________ Dear Sir, my name is ________ ________. I am the Prince of a faraway land, though I live now in the kingdom of Disgrace. A Great Treasure has been taken from me. Stolen. Looted, sir. For this reason I now request…
Read MoreLily: A Found Flash of All Thirteen Stories Mia Bonds and Alexandria Knight, Editorial Assistants __________ I’m interested in this place. It was staggering to witness. Branches bent like ostriches, afraid to look. Sometimes, slivers of light would invade, indicating the buildings were wooden slats. She’s wearing a black trench…
Read MoreLetter from the Guest Editor Aiman Tariq __________ Life as a woman is an intricate web of societal expectations. Hailing from Pakistan, a culture deeply rooted in patriarchy that further derives strength from culture and religion, I, instead of taking the usual route of lifelong subservience in the form of…
Read MoreLetter 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…
Read MoreStump 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…
Read MoreA 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…
Read MoreMusky 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…
Read MoreNew 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…
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