Find a pot of nail varnish: “ConfidentCoral”, by Jessica, perhaps. Fetchthe stainless steel nail scissors and walkbeneath the flying March shadows. Lie on the grass; adjust your scaleof focus to the miniscule. The cat, hull-downamong the crocuses, observes with mildinterest. Select and mark your snail. A scarlet shell-top will allow no laterconfusion of identity. Now…
Category: Magazine Content
How I Tried to Be Kind
a. I wanted to be kind but all I could achieve was cruelty. I wanted to be kind to the friend who had been dumped by a guy she thought she would marry and grow old with, only to realize all he wanted from her was sex; I acted concerned and hugged my friend and…
But Always Meeting Ourselves
The time machine first arrived during the summer. I was outside, mowing the lawn, when it insinuated itself into the shrubbery. The time machine was a tall yellow cylinder, like a can of pop someone had stretched. I remember it smelt like the carpets at my grandmother’s house, which I had crawled across as a…
My Voyage on the Anti-Titanic
He is one hundred years full of Atlantic cold water,He twists inside currents revelations of ice,He soft kisses facefirst the bulkheads of wetrustThe slowdance of years in the blackness of space. A waterlogged astronaut face dark with eyerotHe is bones only connected by an idea of lifeHe doesn’t have ears to register first creakingsOf the…
The Inhabited Shell
In display tanks lit an impossible blue, divers give tentative thumbs-up,dogfish are stroked and fed.On the bench, a couple hissing in Italian,cast their tanned arms again and again into the gloom.Suddenly, a gasp of English –What do you want?That.She spits and points at my heavy bump,then rises, heels treacherous on the stairs.He whispers an apology…
Hampshire Saddleback
When he was done arguing he went to the barn, he had a wrenchcrooked under his left arm.(He’d been fixing the tractorbefore the fight began).The sow shuffled, idle in her stall.He paused a moment, he put his wife’sface on the sow and the sow’sface on his wife.When he was done beatinghe scooped the sausage meat…
Nothing, Shadows
I was lying alone in a double bed, doing terrible things to a pair of knickers. The house was the student house of White’s girlfriend – the room an absent house-mate’s. Every few minutes an ambulance would roll past in the night, turning the room into a silent disco, red and blue. Whenever this happened,…
What You Need to Know About Your Caesarean Section
Turning the pamphlet’s well-worn and underlined pages,in the soft green waiting room,comparing bellies; yours ripe and ready,mine a dream-filled pillow. Choosing the one, that was hard,the right one, my ideal other,the right hair, right eyes.Everything must be perfect for baby, The plan meticulous,your home towna twenty-five minute drive,just over the state line. Our meeting “Hey,…
Afterlives – Delores Haze (Lolita)
It was Lo in the morning? No.It was high in the morning, higherstill in the afternoon, chasing butterflies’reflections, the higher hire of his lowing. His ass in jail, he put a spin, spun a tailthat followed him right up his end.His story makes me pukenlaugh.He stole my this, he killed my thatWhat bull! That stupid,…
Where There’s Smoke
You’re eighteen and have just finished your first semester at an expensive liberal arts college in Vermont. You’re back in Minnesota for Christmas. Your parents are sixty miles away at the outlet mall, buying discounted Gap hoodies for your many cousins. You refused to go, claiming a sore throat. It’s twelve fifteen. You have just…