I. Eddie watched from his place in the shade, slumped against the mailbox, while his brother Luke twisted the rabbit’s foot with pliers. “Yank on it,” said one of the other boys crouched at the curb. Eddie pretended not to care, like he usually did when trailing Luke and his friends around the streets. But…

1. Thirteen, first time away from home, the 3×7 box of the lower bunk at Camp Piney Mount. My ribcage constricted with homesickness, breathing a conscious effort. A curtain of black hair fell over the side of my roof/your floor, followed by your all-seeing eyes. I crossed my arms against my sprouting breasts and pressed…

He says he wants to build a raccoon trebuchet, and I ask what exactly that would look like. I’m imagining bungee cords and repurposed bicycle wheels. A snapping sound. It’s the perfect solution to your problem, he says, and I bet they have plenty of tasty garbage. He traces an arc in the air with…

China Taste I DM John Cheever on Twitter when I see that his most recent tweet says, looking for a good time. In my message, I say, aren’t we all? And he says, We must look for light where we can find it. Classic John Cheever. We end up talking and talking turns into going…

“It seems that Zeus was preparing a wedding banquet for Peleus and Thetis and did not want to invite Eris because of her reputation as a troublemaker.” — Principia Discordia + Before Eris plucks the apple up and bowls it down the hall of emerald and ruby, saffron and butter, where the joyful bacchanal is…

Daydreams Her favorite thing is to read about the antics of the little prince who lives halfway around the globe. Yesterday — or would it be two days ago in his time zone? — he rode in a baroque open air carriage that looked like it belonged in a museum. When he stuck out his…

The sheep gather in the middle of the field. Their whisper rises: Furze. Whin. Gorse. The green is at its greenest this month; the dandelion clocks wait to sound the hour; daisies and buttercups jostle for notice. Furze. Whin. Gorse, the sheep bleat, while the plant they esteem glows like sunshine. A vixen, teats pimpling…

I didn’t go to the funeral. My grief was too obtuse, too childish to be experienced communally. Instead I put on a black concert tee and watched infomercials like we sometimes did. It took the television twenty-eight minutes to sell us any old thing. Not that either of us had any money. Magic brooms, toilet…

Every Friday afternoon at 12:15 p.m., Chanda retrieves the Yale key from under the reclining green-hatted gnome, lets herself in the window-paneled pine wood door, strips on the way upstairs (unlike at her place, there’s no significant other or sticky five-year-old to necessitate picking her clothes up) and gets into the Egyptian-cotton sheeted, king-sized bed…

I. Chris draws back the curtain of the shower and uses a washcloth to scrub the condensation from the full-length mirror on the back of the door. They stand, naked, and stare at themself. They’ve thinned a bit since high school, they’re trying to go mostly vegan, and yet. And yet, their thighs are round,…

I came across a library behind a dilapidated two-story house one afternoon when I was walking to the pharmacy around the corner from my mother’s house. The library was red and square with gilded letters. I couldn’t remember it being there before, but it was possible that it was new or that I had missed…

Rub the coarse fur. Let his heat warm your hands. White his yellow coat with suds that split the sun. Smooth his fattened belly, hoping it’s not all cardboard and plastic bags, that le mouton, the ram, also ate mango skins and fish heads with all the other garbage in Yoff, where he roamed the…