New World Writing Quarterly

Everyone in her fam­i­ly had been toss­ing around the word bal­loon as a verb. I assumed it was a play­ful Christmas tradition.

At a Chinese restau­rant, the eve of the Eve, the aunt stat­ed, “Since I grad­u­at­ed from Wisconsin in nine­ty-five, state tuition –more

“Honey, I’m tak­ing a bath,” Craig said as I was leav­ing. “Can you get that stuff on the list?”

“Of course,” I said, grab­bing the list from the table:

• Bathroom tow­els
• Duct tape
• Galoshes
• Garden Trowel
• Hornet killer
• Bicycle tire pump

I thought I heard him shout “I love you” but couldn’t be sure over the run­ning –more

The object was to jump in the pool, swim to the oth­er side and avoid my girl friends float­ing like Jaws near the cen­ter of the pool. I need­ed to land in the water with enough room between me and their grasp­ing arms that they couldn’t catch me before –more

At dawn the earth con­vulsed and the ocean roared toward the last city, the gnarled maze of scrub pine and ruined sky­scrap­ers we had stalked since we escaped our fraud­u­lent fam­i­lies. Those peo­ple we loved and loathed and bare­ly knew at all. The men –more

That win­ter the moun­tains were unbe­liev­able. We’d come back from Trader Joe’s on a tired gray day, hav­ing a tired gray argu­ment, and I’d park and get out and there at the edge of the clouds were the moun­tains: filmed in blue fog, stand­ing stark –more

The Help

The Sloan fam­i­ly from Ottery St Mary packed away their tow­els, chairs, balls, and kites. They col­lect­ed their rub­bish, bagged it up for the bin by the car park. Edward, the youngest, point­ed at the sea. Everybody watched a man, drip­ping in –more

Somehow in the rush Omar had packed the hotel prayer mat in his lug­gage. In the taxi search­ing for some­thing it turned up. Of course it need­ed to be returned.

— They will think you are Muslim car­ry­ing it, said Omar.

On leav­ing the patis­serie at Thambrin –more

The Strip Mall of Second Chances

My daughter’s pedi­a­tri­cian has been arrested
for writ­ing Oxycodone prescriptions
for her 24-year-old lover. She’s married
with two teenage kids, but that, of course,
isn’t the issue—the issue is the drugs
and young –more

Lost in Space

The Chinese bar is full of fruit machines. So many peo­ple are play­ing the fruit machines. I sit at a table warm­ing my hands with warm wine. A sex doll comes strut­ting towards me. Mind if I join, they say. Sorry I’m leav­ing, I say. They turn on the –more

Brave Women

I remem­ber just the assumption
we might any night die going home:
late night A train from the party
where we drank one glass too many of red wine,
our sil­ver shoes with the court-curved
heels too hard to run in,
–more

Your Perfect Poem

I don’t nor­mal­ly leave a comment,
but I must insist on this exception:
your deli­cious poem was a hit
with my crew! I only made
a few small tweaks:

ingre­di­ent-wise, we like it a lit­tle less bland,
so I spiced it up with some adjectives
and –more

SOMETIMES A RED SHOE IS JUST A RED SHOE

I

From where I wasn’t to now, it’s
the same damn riv­er twice two times over and clear
enough for the rocks to rec­og­nize the col­or yel­low and what
it means. If they wan­dered clos­er, we’d be friends.
Everything is water if you wait long enough.

II

From –more

TIME TRAVEL WHILE HOUSE-HUNTING

My hus­band and I stum­ble upon hous­es frozen in time—
pink-tiled pow­der rooms, pan­eled walls, and mod
base­ment bars mir­rored as if Hugh Hefner were expected.

In one bright orange and green kitchen, all that is missing
is the big sun­flower smi­ley-face –more

One’s Significant Other: The Fool

What one likes:
an objec­tive, a bulls­eye, you, an ene­my (occa­sion­al­ly) and that one.
Understanding, com­pre­hen­sion, agree­ment or consent:
objects that have a sub­or­di­nate or derivate role rel­a­tive to another.

A child, an adult, a mas­ter, a Viscount,
–more

Observations on Capitalism Written on a Postcard Bearing a Reproduction of Painting, 1950 by Joan Miró

Forcing need where none exist­ed before, it repeats the trick again
and again, invest­ing and rein­vest­ing in itself, build­ing, redefin­ing and
widen­ing mar­kets, and, in a pow­er lock appalling to some and making
oth­ers gid­dy with glee, –more

Negative Capability

I don’t actu­al­ly want to fig­ure out pho­tons. We have named the thing that was con­fus­ing us, and that can be enough. Light is both par­ti­cle and wave; love is both glo­ry and pain. Keats could have been a physi­cist — he had the right tem­pera­ment. –more

The gold­en pothos was left in the front of the chapel when my father’s cas­ket was loaded and tak­en away. They took the wreaths of wilt­ing yel­low ros­es and Assorted Seasonal arrange­ments. They took the flo­ral foam cross­es weighed down with ball chrysan­the­mums –more

As the road fell into dis­re­pair – crum­bling at the edges, and then sink­ing and buck­ling and crack­ing up – the trees crowd­ed in for a look. One of them must have tak­en a step for­ward, maybe just half an inch, and the rest fol­lowed. When trees got –more