Excerpts

Andrew Furman CRAWLING   She wasn’t a strong swimmer at first. She had learned how to swim as a child, but this amounted mostly to learning how not to drown, which wasn’t the same thing as swimming. It took her…

Rachel Aimee THE TOGA PARTY The summer I turned fifteen, I resolved to become a real teenager. All of a sudden I couldn’t bear to be a kid for one day longer. I still had posters of baby animals on…

Dennis McFadden OVER THE GARDEN WALL   Two days after Christmas, two weeks after his son, Harry, had barged squalling into the world, the house was teeming with guests, drinks in their hands, teeth shining out of their gobs, there…

Henry Hart WREATHS (for my son) I bend a coat-hanger in a ring, wind it with duct tape, tighten wire around sprigs of fir and holly. Thorns dot my hands with blood. “This is how you do it,” I tell…

Elisabeth Murawski OLD SNAPSHOT: MOTHER AND DAUGHTER We’re in a rowboat, close to shore. Our shoulders meet, my left leans in to your right. In our hands, a dripping mass of water lilies pulled up from the mud. Our smiles…

Richard Prins BECAUSE: AN ETIOLOGY Because she says she's a simple lady. Because I don't believe her. Because she called herself convoluted just a minute ago. Because I'm trying to charm her. Because I say the path to simplicity is…

John Findura MY SON, THE STIGMATIC My son had nightmares of his hands bleeding like Christ’s He spent hours each day wiping non-existent blood from his crown “I am like the Lady in that play, but I love Christ and…

Catherine Broadwall HEMATITE HEART Once, my godmother gave me a box of hearts that could hang from chains as pendants. Each one made of different stone: agate, jasper, quartz. What heart will I wake up with today? I wonder, an…

Steven O. Young Jr. INSUFFICIENT GRACE I wish I could say my heart is origami, a masterwork practiced over centuries, a handcrafted empire of intricate folds creased by the wearpolished femur a wild stag ran smooth, that I am built…

Ruth Taylor AUNT ADELINA’S THUMB For as long as I can remember, Aunt Adelina has talked about her list: who was on it, who wasn’t, what sort of thing we might do to be taken off or—a rare occurrence—put back…