Issue #8
Lulu by Bill Cook

“The therapist says I’m a wreck,” the husband said.

“We’ve already established that,” said Lulu.

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The Woman by Ania Vesenny

They found her body in the mountains, face burned. In her locker at the train station they found nine passports and three wigs.

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Piggish by Robert Shapard

I was a piggish child, thin and small. I wore glasses and would eat anything—it was my way of knowing the world. I ate mold, weeds, shoe polish, and fish food. I tasted shit.

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Our Daughter by Wendy Oleson

Ever wish we’d picked another? You whisper at Mary’s party. Our daughter spits on her candles, dives into an ice cream cake with both fists.

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Sleepwalking in Texas by Nicholas Cook

We move through the night, Burt and I. My brother who has stayed up past his bedtime. Who has followed me into the night where the crickets line against the houses deep in song

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Hair Change by Rupert Dastur

You shoulda seen the shock I had in the 70s, down to the shoulders, thick, dark, two fingers to the suits. And the burns along the jawline.

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Glass Flamingos by Catherine Roberts

I smash them all. Because who the fuck collects glass flamingos? Around me, pink shards sparkle in the carpet like pretty vomit.

Rosetta Post-its by Guy Biederman

Los Gatos Tienen Hambre, says the post-it on the fridge. Since when did the cats learn Spanish, since when did they learn to write? The same could be asked of you, says another post-it.

The Bronze Medal by Vincent James Perrone

She wants to meet the pig—snout down, paraded through the town square of sodden earth and
stump dimples, now trailed by serpentine line of freshly showered farmer with tomato noses and
breath prematurely soured from all that auctioneer talk.

Gallows Pole by Kathy Hoyle

In the dead of summer, while the whiptails hide in sagebrush shadows, and everything blisters in the amber heat and there ain’t nothin but buzzards hummin for miles around, a hanged man dances on a gallows pole.

On the Morning Dance Floor by Alex Juffer

Jakey, face pressed to the window and eyes cupped into makeshift binoculars, could see Mrs. Claddagh sitting perched on her couch, speaking to herself.