New World Writing Quarterly

1. What Remained After the Explosion

Following the third explo­sion on the third island in three years, Dunbar and Pike went alone to assess the dam­age. There they found a flood­ed crater of silt and pow­dered glass in the place where their nitro­glyc­erin pro­cess­ing plant used to be. Walking –more

Garbo won­dered if this is how a den­tist falls in love.

No, the woman at the door’s teeth were not obscene­ly white, they were not entire­ly straight, and they were not devoid of prob­lems. The teeth pos­sessed a slight lean. A slight yel­low­ing scarred –more

We do it on nights when the stars hang low and heavy, ripe fruit in a black bowl of sky, nights when we’re so stoned we make bets about when the stars will fall on us. We’re always stoned, so what? The guy from Detroit is the first to take off –more

I’d been wan­der­ing the mall for hours, so I vis­it­ed the man at the Lost & Found. I’m miss­ing my friend, I said.

You can see we don’t have any adult women here. He ges­tured toward the met­al racks of –more

Day of the Dead

We know by now you could still call, tap that
low land­line volt­age to let us know we
can let go of you, lay you in that basket
of rush­es that floats away in our minds,
finds you liv­ing with a pharaoh until
you return to –more

New World Writing accepts sub­mis­sions the first two weeks of each month. Work received out­side this peri­od will be returned unread.

[ prepo­si­tions no. 1 decem­ber 2 twen­ty nineteen ]

In the tra­di­tions of many, 

chairs are left emp­ty for a patron, set for a par­tic­u­lar saint that our reli­gions call for in our most spe­cif­ic of moments, –more

Sonnet XCVII

Soon after the call to pre-dawn prayers
We lads of the neigh­bour­hood gath­ered at
The dirt-pit to car­ry out our labours.
First the soil was raked for peb­bles that

Could injure. Then pulling logs and running,
Sit-ups with neck heavy with a stone –more

Ten-year-old Albert Rodriguez sat crossed-legged on the floor, as close to the tele­vi­sion as his teacher would let him. It was 1969. Men walked on the moon and lit­tle migrant boys were allowed to watch tele­vi­sion in the school library dur­ing lunch –more

Newcomb Hollow

By unspo­ken accord, at Newcomb Hollow
We always turn to the left
And head past the outliers
To where the last tide leaves the beach sand-swept.

For forty years, our eyes scanned the narrow
Lines of weed and driftwood
As we walked, heads –more

(After Chaibia Talal “Souk,” 1990)

Since Fatma and Zaineb turned four­teen, their moth­er let them go to the mar­ket alone. They knew Mama want­ed to rest before mak­ing a big lamb and veg­etable tagine for din­ner and it was a chance for them to slip –more

The new­ly­weds laze on their sec­tion­al, watch­ing sea­son eleven of Jewish Drama.

The hus­band hides mar­i­jua­na in his shoes, but why, dope is legal.

At Target they buy every­thing that’s not on their list—guns, because Target doesn’t sell guns, Target –more

Dr. Betty Liu is about to put her hand around anoth­er man’s penis for the first time since her hus­band died.

–more

For read­ers with good Mandarin—back-alley Mandarin it might be—the sig­nif­i­cance of the term is per­haps appar­ent. The guess would be street lan­guage passed into the halls of the Imperial Palace; nev­er for­mal­ly –more

All morn­ing Henry has been think­ing about how the end of his­to­ry is over. It’s Tuesday. No one is respon­si­ble for any­thing. At any giv­en moment, bil­lions of peo­ple across the plan­et are qui­et­ly scream­ing inside their heads. Billions are just think­ing, –more

I had decid­ed to kill myself. There were two things that I had done. One was worse than the oth­er; both were unforgivable.

It was easy to choose death in those days. All you had to do was fill out a form; it asked you why you want­ed to kill your­self. –more

They say he left one day. His house­keep­er poked her head in when he was pack­ing and he told her he was going on vaca­tion. He gave the same sto­ry to a friend who want­ed to get din­ner the next night. They found his phone with all his con­tacts in the –more

Once Jane real­ized she had mis­tak­en masochism for per­se­ver­ance, leav­ing was a song on con­tin­u­ous play. On I‑5 to Sea-Tac, she watched tall pines zip by. How had life got­ten so small?

In Chicago, art sup­plies went in stor­age. Jane wait­ed for signs while –more

A Meditation on the Land
—remem­ber­ing a farm foreclosure.
                                        For Darrell Ringer, 1953–93

“Thank you,” he said, while the –more