— We ate gently each other’s eyes, and the world, unseen, awoke.
The Oldest Sister is an Indian Giver
— She takes her word back. The word is Killdeer and it swoops from her mouth when she lets it out for the first time. The smallest sister watches it slice the wind in loops of flight as scallops of air fall like crepe paper around her boots. It is months later when the oldest sister brings a robin home, its head the color of…
A Couch Designer Describes Her Process
— It starts with a strike like a bell against the core of me— could be the silver flash of a scissor, or a harmonica’s shilly-shally. Lately it’s been scenes from late-night TV— I’m addicted to police procedurals. Not necessarily the detective with a mopey mien but the idea of the murderous countryside that contains him— chill landscaping in bone-colored plastics or a dusty…
Shark’s Teeth and Saltwater by Katie McClendon
— Let’s say there is a shark, salivating sea salt for the taste of splintered wood and bone. You are bone centered and blood thick on the rickety bow of a ship. It is not a hefty bottomed floating thing, but more of a small sailing ship, tipping to the slant of waves crashing. You are storm centered and swiftly slipping…
Dorothy Tries
— What pilgrim shadows— how stubbornly they tail you, children better left at home. The tawny stalker slinks, sour puss following that silver marauder— always after your heart, girl. You are dragging yourselves toward paradise: one brick, one brick. By now your feet are swollen, the size of pomegranates, pulsing fuchsia inside hand-me-down pumps. They’ll callous your feet in no time. How cheap you…