When I first joined Grindr, I was lucky enough to meet a man who coached me through the shivering that came over me every time I slipped into bed with men. He was a gardener and worked long hours in the eastern suburbs, where he toiled in enormous suburban backyards for the hyper-wealthy, people who…

Wendell Ford owned and operated a two-chair barbershop in a dying strip mall, catty-corner from the Fullerton Public Library. Even Wendell had difficulty listing the two or three other businesses. This could be accounted for both by his age and by the unremarkable nature of whatever occupied the other storefronts. Perhaps one of the shops…

TO: Lesley FROM: Ada DATE: May 8, 2019 RE: Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) The purpose of this PIP is to identify gaps in your performance as my best friend and provide you an opportunity to demonstrate improvement and commitment. Concerns: I’ve forgiven you for not telling me that you’re dating my father. Since your engagement…

The Walgreens air is buzzing a faint yellow-green that mutes everything inside you except the pain clenching and loosening its fist in your belly at intervals too random to decipher. Go for a walk, the midwife said when you called her an hour ago. Waiting in the Baby Needs aisle for the burning palm to…

We find the crop circle at the end of June. Mira wants to lie down in its center, so we do and she takes off her shirt, like sunbathing at midnight. I want them to see me, Mira says, releasing the clasp of her bra. I want to see her too, so much that I…

She asks, What’s a rustler anyway? The sun sets behind her question and colors return to the desert like water struck. Can’t hold the name of them in my head but earth like the hide of a Palomino horse and in the shadows a soft purple that will soon swallow us whole and lovely. I…

They were invited to a showing at the local theatre. Attendees were told nothing about it, only to come with a set of open eyes. Not everyone had a pair of those, and it was easy to see who did and did not, once the show began. Fifty parrots in bronzed cages — wearing name…

Our father kept a hole in his chest. Sometimes he dug around it with naked hands, left birdseed in the dark indent where his heart used to be. Other times, his fingers would climb into it, caress the hollow, creeks bursting from his aching brown eyes. Every time we came back from the riverbank, me…

Every morning, I write the day’s most important headlines on a blackboard. Death toll passes 7,000 in Philippines typhoon. Second body found in rubble of Norfolk building. Ex-SS guard on trial over Bergen-Belsen deaths. I scrub the board clean every night before getting into bed. “When are you going to stop doing that?” my brother…

The Nibling Ernie’s nephew, Fritz, received his party invitation by way of email while hauling a truckload of scratch-n-dent candies to a backcountry cattle ranch two weeks in advance. The cows loved the candies, the misshapen chews and the gummy worms and the stale marshmallows and the rainbow jimmies. Out in the fields the cows…

A Partial List of Flight Aids Advisory Circular US Department of Internal Disarmament Office of Noncommercial Measures AC22-24 August 05, 2019 BACKGROUND: Piloted flight is just another form of avoidance Let’s be honest, references to the body of an airplane are nothing but linguistic propaganda. Metal wings and manufactured fuselages are the antithesis of scar-powered,…

A single fat droplet hit the singed crown of Maximilian’s scallop, spread into a glassy oval, and dissolved. Maximilian swallowed the remnants of crostini he was languidly munching and glanced up at the ceiling. There were no signs of a leak — no tan splotches or dripping cracks or patches of bubbling plaster. Had he…