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.”…

Dear Casey Kasem, I hated my wedding Alexa Doran __________ the soggy frosting beach sunk under a mini umbrella fleet. his mother both more auburn and more beautiful than me. In our wedding seats we chewed cubed THC gummies. the one girl I’d loved slipped us on the way to…

Memory of May Meg Pokrass __________ It might have had something to do with the way he mumbled my name instead of whispering it while doing the cosmic dance. Or how he could no longer jog. Or it may have had something to do with a mystery woman who left…