New World Writing Quarterly

1

She demand­ed an expla­na­tion.  At the photographer’s request, she stood next to him and smiled at the cam­era until it flashed but she was not in the pho­to.  The pho­tog­ra­ph­er was adamant that some­thing was wrong with her not his cam­era.  He took –more

It was not sur­pris­ing that Tomás and Julio were hav­ing anoth­er argu­ment. Ever since Shukura had left last month, most of the stu­dents were on edge. All of our chil­dren from Egypt and Bangladesh were now gone and no one was sure which group would be –more

January 2, 2017

I was telling Joelle I was almost fin­ished read­ing her mem­oirs. I’d been read­ing them side by side, an odd way to read, sort of like an old two-columned Ashbery poem, or an obscure pas­sage from Derrida’s Glas. Derrida was some­thing –more

The damn cat has dis­ap­peared again. Truth is, I’d turned the hose on him as I was clean­ing the cat box out­side dur­ing a spell of warmer weather.

“Get the fuck out Orayo,” I’d bellowed.

I clean the cats’ box­es, vac­u­um their lit­ter off the floor, –more

Tommy was on his way to the 7‑Eleven to buy con­doms. He had offered to use Saran Wrap and a rub­ber band, but Sheila was­n’t game. They had just met and they had both been drink­ing, but appar­ent­ly not enough. Tommy felt relieved when she sug­gest­ed the –more

Battle

Her orange dress and the but­ter­fly hat and the edge of woods. She is say­ing she built a fort and I am yelling out my win­dow that I’m not allowed out today.

“Bella,” my moth­er yells from where she is patch­ing Dad’s work shirts in the kitchen,  “Get –more

Neuropathy

–more

Early evening on a Friday, wine and cheese time at the inn where we checked in only an hour ago, and we’re seat­ed just out­side the door to the serv­ing area, wrought-iron table and chairs on the edge of a court­yard, a foun­tain bab­bling with­in earshot.  –more

Broken Cakes

Autumn is my bur­den. My morn­ings come mid-after­noon. I crawl out of bed by the light between the pur­ple vel­vet cur­tains from my failed sec­ond-mar­riage bed­room. I take a swig of vod­ka to wet my cracked lips, light a cig­a­rette on the fumes of my next –more

I couldn’t real­ly say why I hadn’t killed the bull. Not right away, when every­one kept ask­ing. I struck at it sev­er­al times in the exact spot I should, but I could not sink the blade. I couldn’t say to my friends inside the vehi­cle what had hap­pened, –more

Before the Desert

 
Before the desert, I shook trees for
you, beat bush­es, trav­eled far and wide, high
and low, both inside and out through the course
of unfor­tu­nate con­se­quences, the
def­i­n­i­tion of matu­ri­ty that
I final­ly rec­og­nize –more

Far above: a jet descends. As if pulled by an invis­i­ble hand behind a mag­net­ic game board.

Gods play with car and boat and plane-shaped pawns from the oth­er side.

Throw the die, and tokens scoot along. Go to jail or plum­met down to hell.

Twin engines –more

I wake and search for my phone beneath my pil­low where I store it night­ly. Glare from the win­dow cov­ers the screen. I drop under the sheets, blan­ket, and duvet. I’m held as if embraced, but it’s only my hair that smells like skin and cotton.

My –more

When we were with­in an hour of the stu­pa, Thurston final­ly showed me the pho­to of it.  We’d stopped so he could take a nitro­glyc­erin tablet from the bot­tle he’d bought in India.  He looked toward the top of the moun­tain and smiled despite –more

Oprah will die! Oprah will die! Oprah will die! you think as you pump gas at Gas on the Go on Thanksgiving Day. You mean to send her no bad kar­ma, of course. It’s mere­ly a fact. Still, it seems more shock­ing than oth­er deaths. Oprah will die! Oprah –more

Gray Cats

Juniper bush­es out­side a green house. Matchbox cars in the sand, the trace of their tracks lead­ing away from me. These are the first things I remem­ber. The dog’s neck, the swell of ticks under her collar–their white bal­loon bod­ies. I wait on the play­ground –more

The Ship With Three Decks

“But the old sailor had brought along the bar­rel con­tain­ing the water of long life, in which he immersed the youth’s body, only to see him jump right back out as sound as ever and so hand­some that the king’s daugh­ter threw her arms around his –more

Words string out like clothes­line along each page as Ellen reads in the yard. Thoughts sweep in like tides as she turns each page. She has ques­tions, and they have led her out­side into the ear­ly evening sun.

The drugs in the draw­er. The dirty sock in –more

The radio was tuned to the local NPR sta­tion so they didn’t have to talk. Tara was glad because each time she thought of some­thing to say, it began with, “Had I known,” and Pete already explained that if he’d told her he was tak­ing her to his –more

Dear Dr. Hanson, Nurse Cache and Lisa:

I just want­ed to write this note thank­ing you all for work­ing these many years to keep me upright and nom­i­nal­ly func­tion­al. Very kind of you all, and one of my few fond mem­o­ries of Penurburg, along with the –more