There were prickly pears everywhere. They nested in baskets and bowls were tucked into bureau drawers, in the glove compartments of cars,...

Timir likes being the little spoon and I like burying my face in his thick tousled curls; jet black like the darkness in his name....

The Dairy Queen pumps her cows’ teats like she milks the truth and mines for lies, plies her subjects with the...

Mary, Mother of God, All she wanted from Man, her second husband, was honesty, “hot coal white lies burn faster than gasoline.” Without...

Could you forgive me if I told you the air was warm as my skin, that there is no sound in the desert but your own shaking breath, that...

Jahanara stood sentry outside a place she had never visited. A place she had never had reason enough to visit. A bank. In her browned...

The moon is a vacancy sign, and I want to pull in for a rest. But the parking lot is full of stars, their headlights blinking through the...

Do you remember the time we were driving down Main Street in your dad's old blue Monte Carlo and "Fast Car" played on the radio? You said...

My Boy, When you read this letter, I will be dead. I’m sorry, but you need to let me go. If you don’t, I might start haunting people, and...

The first time we saw it, we were rowing under Barnes Bridge, cool shadows flooding our lungs with their mossy scent. Like the black...

I fell asleep with my left hand resting on my phone, and when I woke up the phone had become part of me. My hand had grown around it, had...

There once was a husband and wife who had lived in a big city out West. They were a happy couple who enjoyed teaching high school...

Spring break meant a trip south of Atlanta to Georgia’s fat bottom. Ama’s grandparents lived in a house there with two bedrooms, a single...

If Your Father Dies on Holiday in India and His Brother Whom You’ve Never Met Conducts His Funeral, Then Where For You Paining? CW:...

Appetizers I remember your fingertips—your fingertips. I remember your fingertips during our first dinner, and how I was nervous, but...

Don’t turn around. Throw your wallet behind you,” the raspy voice says. My breath escapes into the early morning air in the form of a...

A flash of fantail wing, a clack of beak on glass. Elena watches the bird zip between the windows of her study and the kitchen. She...

From the diary of Cassandra Austen, sister of Jane Austen I have a choice, one which I fear may attract some consternation and regret....

She liked doing it to music. It relaxed her, she said, helped her focus. “On what?” I asked. “The situation,” she said. The niche between...

Hel is perched in the large bay window of Hemlock Tattoo Removal. Her serpentine tail curls around her, flicking in time with the sound...