New World Writing Quarterly

Drop City

It was the mid­dle of the night, or it wasn’t. Do you remem­ber how that works? Now, the psy­choac­tive drugs por­trayed on each new series seem to be about mad­ness, as if that were an end to every­thing. But you remem­ber the day when we wad­ed into the –more

I need to speak out about death and humanity,
don’t I? The world ends in three hours. All
I have is you, a limp car­rot, and a change bucket
on the kitchen counter. The flesh on my elbow
is ragged and hood­ed. I can almost pull –more

Leslie squint­ed at the menu and willed her stom­ach to coöper­ate. She’d done her reg­u­lar half hour on the stair mas­ter, and sat in the steam room for a good 20 min­utes. That had always worked before to sweat out a hang­over. Maybe she was get­ting old. –more

In the Carl’s Jr. park­ing lot across the street, two teenage boys in hang­ing-open red Carl’s Jr. shirts were argu­ing with a square woman who was stand­ing in the dri­ve-through lane. Parked at the pick-up win­dow was a dingy white mini­van with a punched-out –more

I woke up miss­ing my big toe, my hair in a mul­let, and with a half-eat­en donut on the bed­side com­mode. A shep­herd preached in the court­yard and the witch had parked her broom in the mid­dle of the dri­ve. Some kids were smack­ing each oth­er sil­ly with –more

One of the men men­tions buoy­an­cy, and that’s when I know: they’re talk­ing about me.

I had sus­pect­ed. This is our third day in the same hotel, the third day I’ve ven­tured down to the pool in ear­ly evening to catch what gold remained from –more

        in mem­o­ry of José Saramago

I don’t remem­ber when I stopped being able to hear. That makes it worse. There’s no moment I can hold up and point to and say Look. It hap­pened to me also.

I know the day that it hap­pened, I do. When the whole –more

Jethrob Macromanni’s only real friend was a name­less horse. He would take the horse on long walks to the town lake and that was nor­mal. He would also ride the horse to and from the bar—because of that the horse had a rep­u­ta­tion around town.

Jethrob –more

Nell hung up the phone and turned to her sis­ter. “I need you to dri­ve me down there.”

“You still haven’t learned how to dri­ve?” Agnes had just come in from the storm. She had an umbrel­la, but she was still soak­ing wet.  “Where did they –more

I did too much for her, but Pnina emailed to say the lamps would be ten dol­lars for the pair and she had to have them.  Small, steel, bed­side lamps with cat-print shades.  Pnina had asked me to exe­cute the deal, because she wasn’t –more

Everyone just calls me Al.  Well, not every­one, exact­ly, as I do not have that many friends here in this coun­try, but all those who do call me Al.  You can call me Al.

It makes me laugh how mixed up you Americans are.  You get every­thing so com­plete­ly –more

There’s noth­ing quite like the Chinese edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem, where by the very same for­mu­las that are drilled in the stu­dents’ heads day in and day out, con­crete “this-is-the-answer” study­ing is added and mul­ti­plied to com­pose a sin­gle ado­les­cen­t’s entire –more

*
Each night this neck­lace cools
till its fever smells from silk
cov­ers the dirt with buttons

and sleeves help­ing you reach
for a stone small enough to swallow
though it’s her mouth that’s lifted

that stakes every­thing on a sin­gle rock
for shore­line –just like that! a tiny pill
tak­en with water and you find yourself

Standing, hunched, in his bed­room, he would plan to pack the bare essentials—one pair each of under­wear and socks, one t‑shirt for each day, one pair of jeans, a col­lared shirt—but would end up frus­trat­ed, confused.

Which under­wear, for exam­ple, –more

Gavin, a mid­dle school his­to­ry teacher, stood in line at the super­mar­ket, duck­ing his head, try­ing to go unno­ticed. Though he only had a few items, he hat­ed the self-check machines, afraid he’d make a mis­take or the price would­n’t ring up right. Some –more

Gently, Dr. Sukimoto sug­gests it is time for Sharon to get her affairs in order. Dr. Sukimoto is her favorite oncol­o­gist. The flaps of hair on either side of his face remind her of the soft ears of a bea­gle. When he says these words, Sharon, whose –more

A coun­try grows, waters its deserts, rais­es its chil­dren, cul­ti­vates trees, con­structs cities, opens schools, equips hos­pi­tals, defends its bor­ders, builds sky­scrap­ers, pro­grams its com­put­ers, fights a nec­es­sary war, accepts immi­grants, starts busi­ness­es, –more

Pull the weeds, I hear my land­la­dy say. She likes to give strict instruc­tions to her man, so much so that I’ve been inspect­ing him from my kitchen win­dow to see if I can fig­ure out if he is a sub­mis­sive. He is no hunk but there seems to be some­thing –more

Crosswalk

I nev­er see her any­more, but I remem­ber what she said.  We were near the end of our sec­ond date, stand­ing at a cross­walk.  On our first date, we’d been on our best behav­ior, so I’d post­poned any con­clu­sions.  We’d both been divorced for over –more

Faces round a fire call back spin­ning wheels, pull up that throb­bing glow, the hiss of drip­ping sul­phur on a grade of crush run gravel.

Fourth of July and they thought it’d be a kick to stick pieces of bust­ed lum­ber to the back of my bicy­cle, –more