Mr. Dimao, our 7th grade Health teacher, was totally stand-up about it. He stuck to the facts, and he never got embarrassed. At the end of the unit, he made time for an anonymous Q&A. He even passed out scraps of paper he’d cut up himself. I couldn’t think of a question. I didn’t […]
Poetry 86
Carley Moore: Keith
I wanted everything from my mother’s childhood—the paper doll with her photo superimposed on the head, the baby blue mini-wardrobe for doll clothes, the small pink poodle skirt. My grandma released an item every couple of years from the attic. I was never allowed in. “It’s a mess,” she said. Or “You’ll just root […]
Shivani Mehta: The Butterflies
You unzip my dress, a curve from the side of my left breast to the top of my hip. My body is a column of butterflies. One by one they wake from sleep, roused by the light and cool air. One by one they open their wings, responding to some deep internal pressure, the instinct […]
Shivani Mehta: The Rock
A rock the size of a house hovers outside my window. A woman sleeps in its shade. I try to open my window to warn her a rock is about to fall on her, but the window’s stuck, resisting my attempts to open it. One summer my twin sister and I spoke only German to […]
Kelly McQuain: New Baby at the Office
What am I supposed to say? Your baby’s lovely when he’s not? That he doesn’t look almost simian with his scrunched-up face and shock of electrified orangutan fuzz on top? That his hands are sweet as apricots, his toes teasingly nibble-able? No, I don’t want to baby-sit. He’s so cute I could eat […]
Mary McMyne: Heyghoge
Blind, he wandered about in the forest, eating nothing but grass and roots, and doing nothing but weeping and wailing over the loss of his beloved wife. — from “Rapunzel” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1857, tr. Ashliman) Into the thorns you fell, a poor thing, to become blind eater of grass and […]