The first limb springs from the ground at the beach. It is a foot. One of the locals’ daughters pulls it from the sand as she collects mussels, which she drops into a bucket of seawater to watch their ghostly appendages wriggle out from their shells. She turns the limb over in her hands, thinking…

In sleep, Mary dreams of pinions and tailfeathers, of the empty hole between her beak and her throat, where her unspoken desire can escape. When she wakes Mary feels rustling deep inside. She hears it over the sound of the nurse brushing Mary’s long hair from its tangled nest, over her husband and the doctor…

I am already mosquito bitten and sunburned when I reach my brother’s cabin in the middle of fucking nowhere, though “cabin” is too generous, “dump” or “shithole” might be more accurate — roughly the size of the backyard shed where my parents still keep their rotting croquet set and patio chairs and the old push…

I At first Darcy thought it was a bird, its quiet, high keening seeping through her daughter’s bedroom door and pooling in the hall. True, something was a little off about the cry, something not quite birdlike, but with climate change driving so many creatures from their original habitats, it was about time for even…

“What’s the weirdest call you’ve ever been on?” The new kid actually showed up again, worked hard all day. What had it been now, two weeks? Kevin. Even his name was green. Kevin was someone’s buck-toothed little brother, the guy who never stopped dicking around in the back of remedial English. Paulie had to hand…

Stavros noticed me sleeping under my coat in the winter of my fourth year. I had taken to napping in the hallway of the Arts Building before the arduous bus ride back to the apartment I regrettably rented with two girls from my program. We’d moved in together amidst promises we’d be stemless wine glass-toting…

This oil painting is of a red castle towering over dark green foliage, set against a blue sky. Our perspective, as audience, places us on the ground, near the trees, looking up. The framing is such that we see more sky than trees; the ground is not in the frame. The picture is color balanced:…

Months ago I made an arrangement with my neighbor. Whenever he wants to smoke a cigarette, which he always does out the open window in his living room, he knocks twice on our shared wall. That way I know to close the window in my living room, which is less than ten feet from his.…

They say that if you see a bear, you should speak these words: “Hey, Bear.” Speak, not shout, in an even tone. A greeting with a message on its back: I’m human. Avoid Me. You already know that. They say that if a bear is thirty feet away, it’s already too late. Better to keep…

A boy is born, nose running before he knows why, but he knows this place doesn’t feel like home, doesn’t feel like warmth, doesn’t feel like womb, and the room is bright, bright like a future might be if you run long enough, but how long is long enough and does speed affect time or…

The doctor gives me conflicting information about my heart. After this, I feel a shift in my own personal gravity. Each step is something weightier than before. On my morning walk, it is over ninety degrees. My own shadow scares me and I feel my heart rate increase, my chest tighten. If I were my…

Water pushed across the floor of the basement, gray paint loosening in large mushroom blooms, chips bubbling and floating away. The sump pump bobbed above the drainage pit as the pipe above it dripped steadily down the side wall, evolving into a flow that raced across one thousand square feet and lapped the stairs. The…