The Birds of Joy by Luke Rolfes
Down the hall of screams, men in plastic suits go by with another body in a wheelbarrow. The fifth one today—a woman in her mid-sixties.
My Grandmother in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1943 When They Were Building an Atomic Bomb by Emily Kiernan
Lucy arrived into a city of clattering. Metal on metal on packed dirt on rail ties on muddy standing water on boardwalks on cement on flesh on leather on canvas on metal on metal on earth.
Tiers of Joy by Cyn Nooney
My mom sent me to Carmen’s house with banana bread because her brother Theo died. He had just turned seventeen.
Pursed by Amina Gautier
Her change purse was always hungry, but today she had nothing to feed it. I’m hungry, it said, as if she couldn’t tell.
Leo: Regulus by Emjay Holmes
Lily rubbed the fibres between her fingers, coarse like coir or horsehair. She flipped Ed’s recliner on its side. It sagged, not surprising the months he’d slept there, the stairs impossible. When the pain kept him awake, he’d sit, picking out constellations through his telescope.