New World Writing Quarterly

My moth­er was an opti­mist, my father was an optometrist. They opened up the shop at a time in Brooklyn when you did­n’t have to be so seri­ous about a thing like that.  You could have a lit­tle fun, you could put some of your­self –more

When I was young, bed­time meant shrink­ing beneath the cov­ers in case the Devil found me. My par­ents said you could tell he was there by a sud­den sense of dread, and the smell of excre­ment on the air. The small cru­ci­fix they –more

X lives over the USA Fried Chicken and Pizza Halal on Hancock Street. He goes by X because he doesn’t have a name and the peo­ple at the boys’ home in Williamsburg said that he was wear­ing a raggedy Star Wars t‑shirt –more

A small light­ed cruise boat crawls around a bend in the canal. The murky brown water is shal­low today and much of the garbage that’s nor­mal­ly con­cealed is vis­i­ble. It floats here and there. Some is stuck to the mud­dy bank.

The –more

These are the first days of spring. The breeze at dawn
pumps pet­ri­chor to the tune of birds chirp­ing relent­less cheer;
that gap between pound­ing heart and slug­gish mind. A woman
and cat lie in bed, wait­ing for the day to begin.

The cat says let’s eat –more

The dream starts, stops, picks itself up. Suppose I breathe some­times. So what! Not easy! Never was. To relax. Do noth­ing. And breathe. Well, it must be nice: all that noth­ing, all that breath. Anyway, here’s what –more

This morn­ing, the doctor’s nose twitched along, trapped in a web of spi­der veins, as he used jar­gon and acronyms. As he said can­cer of the breast, instead of just say­ing breast can­cer. As you sat there, wear­ing that damned –more

Heroin is a moth­er drug. It puts you in the warm safe­ty of the womb where everything’s fine.           – Tom Verlaine

Everyone loves hero­in. Opium, mor­phine, lau­danum (those were days), methadone, codeine, Robitussin, –more

Juvenile Delinquency

I swear the boy at the bus stop
will nev­er get away with
what­ev­er he thinks I am,
a fuck­ing cunt he says,
kick­ing a spray of rocks and gravel
that peck like roost­ers at my bare shins.

Because I’m fif­teen, I fork his lawn,
white plas­tic prongs –more

The day after I fin­ished my first semes­ter of col­lege, I drove up to Utica to house-sit for my aunt and uncle. Having near­ly failed out of my com­put­er sci­ence pro­gram three times in less than a year, I decid­ed to ditch the –more

Under more typ­i­cal cir­cum­stances I’d show up at your place wear­ing my stir­rups, car­ry­ing a bot­tle of chardonnay.

But not today. Don’t ask me to come around.

I would love to “drop in,” as I used to do, sport­ing a fez –more

We thank every­one who sub­mit­ted to this issue. Special thanks to Senior Editors Kim Chinquee and Elizabeth Wagner. The next issue will be April 2023, accept­ing sub­mis­sions April 1–14. Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy the readings.

Don’t sleep on the wormup!

Don’t sleep on the wormup!
You’ll nev­er make it out if you try.
On Long Island we saw a dead eel,
     silver-blue
Stomach leak­ing in terror.

It looked like a sausage.
No one ever tells you life is going to be so inspir­ing.
–more

1. We Become Death

We watched the first explo­sion from our lab­o­ra­to­ry and it freaked us all out. I looked at Ed, his big thick framed glass­es reflect­ing the mush­room cloud: a tow­er­ing mon­stros­i­ty, a hand of des­o­la­tion reach­ing up from the desert, –more

When You’re The Actress

You and he will star in 140 episodes. You will be a damsel and a were­wolf, an opera star and a jeal­ous clown, a dom­i­na­trix and a detec­tive. You will nick­name the cam­era Gregory, from the Latin word Gregorious, mean­ing watch­ful. –more

IF YOU SHOULD FIND YOURSELF VOICELESS

There may be a grand­moth­er some­where who would be will­ing to care­ful­ly col­lect a drop or two of your tears and mix them with a sprig of rue and a lock of your hair. At this point you can for­get all of the advan­tages that you –more

Once, in May, a trac­tor near where the teacher lived in Western New York van­ished beneath the earth when a farmer drove too ear­ly into the onion fields. The teacher, a month from fin­ish­ing his first year of instruct­ing teenagers, –more

This life splits you apart like a for­tune cook­ie. Bear with me while I have this Proustian moment the year I was twelve and live on Martha Avenue with a fire down the street. Fire trucks and fire men.

The house was once a small lend­ing –more

My friends and I are talk­ing about what comes after we die. Nothing about souls or the after­life – the only one who believes in that stuff is Cassie, and we all know that’s her Pisces moon talk­ing – but we are con­cerned about our bod­ies. Burial, –more

Avoid sen­tence fragments. 

My school days are not frag­ments, they are one big blur. The too-early–in-the-morning garbage trucks that sound like dying whales.  My mother’s bowls of healthy, taste­less oat­meal.  Which –more