New World Writing Quarterly

The Sewing Table

It creaks at either end
if you don’t hold on
to it from underneath
when you move it

and we move it often
around the small kitchen.
Pine plank with engraved
six-inch rulers burned into to it

on both of the long sides
so that the –more

Manuel was up and about before dawn. He’d always start the morn­ing with a cold show­er, a rit­u­al that relieved mus­cle sore­ness from the day pri­or and jolt­ed his motor sens­es for the day ahead. To Manuel, a cold show­er was also a dai­ly test of pain –more

NWWQ sub­mis­sions are closed. We will accept sub­mis­sions again October 1–14, 2023. You will find below almost two dozen intrigu­ing works –more

Mr. Kim takes atten­dance as the kids work on their warm-up: list­ing items for their sur­vival back­packs. The all-fac­ul­ty email had sug­gest­ed col­or­ing sheets as a calm­ing mea­sure, but Mr. Kim had want­ed it to feel like a nor­mal –more

Empty Bucket List

I heard a voice I nev­er saw.
“You’ve only got six months to go, so live.”
While walk­ing on a trash-strewn beach,
regret­ting those squan­dered years,
I built an urgent men­tal spreadsheet.

I liq­ui­dat­ed all my wealth, applied
for twen­ty-sev­en –more

They’d been going out for six months but this was their first trip out of town as a cou­ple, using a week­end of win­ter break to browse Greenville, two hours and change from where they taught col­lege in Atlanta.   Back in –more

Saturday Afternoon, Ansonia

Sixty years ago this winter
I am still eight years old, grieving
the death of my mother.

The mêlée of children
teem­ing around me could be
a tableau from a paint­ing by Brueghel.

We are await­ing our turns
on a tobog­gan –more

There must be a word
for it: wak­ing up in the
night iden­ti­fy­ing a bounded,
dis­crete, yet repeated
phe­nom­e­non, so profound
and obvi­ous you don’t need
to write it down, but yell
it loud in your head
so –more

A bell jin­gled as the door of Snackville Junction opened. The café sign with a fat chef hold­ing a spoon blinked on. A man came in and sat at the counter.

“Little late for lunch, Mister,” said the waitress.

A pass­ing freight train with pig­gy­back –more

The vio­lins were miss­ing some­where with­in the mir­ror. The strings curl around the elas­tic of  my partner’s shoes as he lifts me up. It braids through the soft pink rib­bons and snaps as it approach­es my ankle. Still I count one, two, three, four, –more

Summer 1971, I lived with six women from Trinity College, DC.  The only male house­mate, I sort of slipped in and stayed. Previously, this Harvard Street res­i­dence had been the tran­sient house of the Radical Lesbians four doors up. Once, while I was –more

The First

The drunk­en old street-wreck had been tread­ing on exceed­ing­ly thin ice late­ly. (Not such a stretch on this por­tion of the equa­tor in fact, where there were numer­ous rinks and sculp­tur­al fan­tasias of var­i­ous kinds.) Emboldened recent­ly, the –more

“The music I love is by dead peo­ple,” my father says.

We’re head­ed to Mom’s in his truck, but he’s on a dif­fer­ent trip.

“Dee Dee, Joey, Johnny, Tommy. All gone.” He turns up the vol­ume over the blast of the heater, and I eye the screen –more

bananas

I liked them almost green, she pre­ferred them soft.
You might be think­ing that I’m speak­ing of
the way we slurred our men, but when
I fucked up, when she thought I might become
three scoops of haz­ard drenched with nuts,
–more

First day on the job and the only work shirt that fits Mohammad has “Bob” embroi­dered above his heart. Buttoning up the dark blue oxford, Mohammad jokes about how easy it is to spell. His first cus­tomer, a tiny old woman need­ing new wind­shield –more

Fred had a pas­sion for vermin—to put it inac­cu­rate­ly. In fact, he had a pas­sion for their exter­mi­na­tion, for nov­el meth­ods of effect­ing their cap­ture and destruc­tion. He had a pas­sion, too, for obses­sive obser­va­tion of his traps; he need­ed to bear –more

How It Started and Where It Went

Clouds limped up the mar­ble steps of the sky
over Tower Road by the cemetery,
its gray slabs stick­ing out, snaggle-toothed,
from the soft gums of earth
that morn­ing you showed me the note
left on your wind­shield, vague­ly –more

Telos

Mama, I don’t pick fights with anyone
but if my telos as Master’s dis­ci­ple is to be a megaphone
for oth­ers, don’t you won­der what happens
if when I speak all I hear are echoes?

In high school, run­ning all the way to Chambers
I laughed –more

One Afternoon

The sky chose to wear blue and the dog put on her boots and we  went out walk­ing. She sniffed the ground for scat as the sweet scent of lilacs waft­ed into her nos­trils and mine. We walked down to the riv­er run­ning through the park. As geese pad­dled –more

Horse with No Name

He’s been on my back for three days. You’d think a shrunk
104 pounder wouldn’t be so heavy. But the Nevada desert
is bru­tal even in March and he wants to hit the Strip — should
be fun, an hon­or but he keeps steer­ing me off the –more