Silverfish twist through crevices in the Escomb church walls. Alive in the shadows. Centuries of insects slick with Saxon blood. They...

We're all lips and limbs under a velvet blanket when my crush's mother barges in, she’s all hands when she yells whaddya youse doing,...

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

You ask what I want and you look expectant. I want to tell you that I want a day in a hotel room with you. I want a nowhere space, where...

You fall out the bottom of a bad dream and land ass-up in the swamp your uncle ran off to after the car accident that killed his wife....

I can say now that maybe I shouldn’t have pestered the chef and irritated the hungry folks lined up and shuffling behind me in a queue...

The first thing a baby can do is cry. Stimulus response, vocalised, after that first smack. Tears, and the wordless wail. That tap. Hush...

Every Tuesday night the guy in the red baseball hat sits alone at a table for two in the café area of the bookstore, focused on the...

On graduation night, we reveled around clandestine bonfires until the sky purpled and dawn broke. Livers pickled, we slouched back into...

“Just five minutes. I won’t be long. Try to be a good girl.” Mummy makes her wait in the car. Mummy doesn’t like to pay for parking. ...

This is the inventory of what I now have: One set monogrammed sheets, stored under the bed. One set, once-washed, petal pink sheets, on...

At birth, he looked inky black with corkscrew hair tufts. His ancestors were magicians and arcane sorcerers. At two years, his voice...

Dennis knocks on my door before 8 a.m. It’s a relief to see him. Like it is when Doug’s cold nose greets me in the morning. My older...

LAST DAYS OF MAY After my last exam, I stopped to see my brother, who’d just invented a holiday that required him to call off work....

Better twenty in the seventies than seventy in the twenties He did her a favor, donating her fake-fur tiger-striped mini-dress to...

They are with a friend of mine in our share house but sometimes we find ourselves alone and we talk about both our worlds. I have never...

Welcome to C’est La Vie Ranch. Please take your personalized itineraries for your stay, I say to the thirtysomething women in Neiman...

The ice-cream soda comes in brown bottles, sometimes with a packet of crisps, as we play under the table, under everyone’s feet, in the...

2-1/2 cups plain flour: mother-in-law Vera 8 tablespoons butter: Dan, my husband. 1-3/4 cups sugar: “Let’s host my sister’s engagement...

I close the door and turn the key for the very last time, hopeful that my unwanted guest would remain behind the lock. At first, I had...