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Shadow Boxers Here again, that strange time of day           when certain shadows of the past  meet less-than-certain shadows  of the future, unwitting partners sparring dimly by interior light. Our compulsions come out  to watch, with their vicarious desires, before the shadows finally recede  again, into another day – or is it night?  The two always circling each other  like anxious prizefighters,  looking for a way in. Reminding us, if only briefly,  what we started with.  What we have left: a lifetime. In the Leaving (Ode to Jim Beam)                         The last time I had you inside me was ten years ago today,  when I decided to resist the next day’s  calling – as familiar by then  as drain-water flushing through wall-pipes,  whisking away all doubt and resolve. You’ve come calling since,  to remind me – how lovely the late light  looked through your golden-brown haze,  how delicious the cool cavern-y air tasted,  soaked with your sweet heady vapor. What it did to the soul.  We can celebrate together if you wish,  though I will not welcome you in. Knowing now who you are, what you did.  But we may reminisce from a distance just the same, recalling what we went through  together, the good and the bad.  Then I will again find life in the leaving  and celebrate what remains. James Lilliefors is a poet, journalist, and novelist, whose writing has appeared in Door Is A Jar, Ploughshares, Salvation South, Anti-Heroin Chic, Mobius, The Washington Post, Miami Herald and elsewhere. He's a former writing fellow at the University of Virginia, now living in Florida. His most recent novel was THE CHILDREN'S GAME (written as Max Karpov).

Because we don’t know how to lose Because we don’t know how to lose we lie in bedrooms feet splayed against ice cream tinted walls, pink mint and blue. Pack knock-off totes with mace and lip gloss. Post dance routines we delete before morning because we don’t know how to lose. Doom scroll Tik-Tok, don’t leave drinks unattended, pray to god and Jesus and the man down the street that he’ll just pass by and stop standing there, stop standing legs wide as a compass with excavator eyes because we don’t know. Draw our curtains against the street and sun, pretend we’re safe in the house because we don’t know how to lose. Regulate our eyes and hair and throat and breasts, the slope of our stomachs, gap of thighs, the food we eat,the way we stretch the friends we make, the clothes we wear,the clothes we don’t wear, the clothes our friends wear while we still have friends. Please excuse the sound of our voice, that vocal fry, that noise like a furnace because we don’t know how to lose. Because we bend. Like trees. Flow like rivers, know a whole vocabulary of smiles, such range of choice flight freeze and fawn because we don’t. Know how to lose. Wear clothes too small and rings too tight and learn to breathe leftover air and don’t get sick or tired or sad or mad because we don’t. Know how to live. In smaller boxes, smaller pockets, there’s always another smaller to come, just watch how little we can be and when baby girls cry, when baby girls scream when baby girls run when baby girls sing when baby girls play, before we’re here too long, before we overstay, outlive our use, exist too much, we teach them. How not to lose. Like us. Violet The day the plane almost falls from the sky you watch the news with your always pursed mouth because the world tumbles in if you move your lips. Make a sucking sound like wind through pierced metal, swoop around the room arms bent like a heron. You won’t open your mouth but you’d leap from that hole. You don’t know the difference between bees and wasps. Who will defend you from the world but me? We run out of cereal and milk, again. Sit with sun squeezing through the cracks of your pink childhood curtains, your single bed full of damp dreams you don’t remember. You think you disappear when you close your eyes and sob through clamped teeth until I drag myself humpbacked with sheets to lie beside you on the floor. Wake up to you drawing dawn with sticky fingers on my skin.  No one warned me of this thirst. Your throat bulges like a baby bird, my chin is streaked red and there’s no one to feed us. I swallow the sun to protect you from heat and you unearth an old lipstick from the closed room down the hall with the chilled air of fairy tale. A relic of the lilac-lipped mother with the slender dresses of night, drink in hand to quell her nerves, breaking promises to be back soon. Your skin the shade of moonlight beneath the violet streaks. Delicate as the finch you catch to sing you to sleep. It slips away before morning, just another vanishing behind closed doors.  Crimson smear of menstrual blood the day of the door knock, your first period since, as if your frozen body unclenched just in time for that fist. Awkward boots and the smell of rain in their hair. You think you disappear when you close your eyes but only I dissolve in the spreading light of the door. ‘Your mother,’ they start to say but of course you know, like you know the whine of tearing metal, the difference between wasps and bees. The distance between flying and falling.

I wake up early enough to leave a message saying I’m sick, then close my eyes and tell myself that sometimes it takes a moment of giving up to remember how not to give up. I get a text from Chuck later, relaying a message from the boss that I better be goddamned sick,and I panic, because it’s obvious I’m not. So I take a cold shower and sit naked and dripping in the back room that isn’t insulated with the window open to let in the winter’s cold, chain smoke and shiver in the cracked leather chair, knowing that catching a cold like this is just an old wives tale while praying that my immune system is so repressed that my body will collapse in on itself and bless me with some fucking sniffles. But in the morning, I feel fine. Well, shitty, but just normal shitty, except mentally sicker than I was the day before, and I stop at the gas station and grab a handful of those mini pepper packets without buying anything and spend the day snorting them so I sneeze and go around parading my manufactured runny nose, telling everyone See? and to keep their distance because this cold’s a real doozy. *** I’m alone and it’s dark in the shop and when my eyelids involuntarily droop I get a sudden image of a moment in my life, see a young, naïve version of myself who has no idea how badly he fucked me over today. *** I’m hungover as shit because I’m not good at drinking anymore but I’ve never been good at being sober and it’s hours until noon and I don’t think I’m going to make it ‘til lunch let alone the end of the day, so I’m flipping through a mental rolodex for a plausible enough excuse to get the fuck out of work and back in bed while trying not to be too much of a dick to anyone, but I’ve already left early twice this week for bullshit reasons and I just told the college kid to fuck off when all he wanted was to know if I liked the fucking album he had on and he slunk away all sad but I don’t feel bad even though I know I will later because I do, actually, like the album, and for a second I think about asking him his opinion of the Silver Jews or Pavement or some other shit he’s just found out about that’s blowing his mind by way of an apology, but instead I schedule that thought for another time because I feel like I’m going to pass out or puke standing over the moving press and I know I’m fucked, completely fucked, since the best excuse I’ve come up with so far is the goddamned truth. *** I’m having a cig on the loading dock and watching the rainstorm, big fat drops racing to shatter on the ground, pelting the steel sheet roof hard enough to rattle in through my headphones. No thunder, no lightning, no wind, just rain falling faster than the sewer drain below the dock can handle, a rippling pond growing. Big Jay appears next to me, cigarette between his teeth. “Ooof,” he says. “Really coming down, huh?” I stick my hand into the downpour and drop my cig into the pond, watch it bounce in the chaos, and don’t say anything to Big Jay, just stand there next to him until he does the same, plops his white filter into the chaos with my brown one to be tossed around like ships in tattered seas clinging to final threads of thin hope. “I love watching the rain,” I say and kinda shake my head in wonderment, and hope that Big Jay walks away and doesn’t ask me why, why do I love the rain so much, because I don’t know if I even like watching the rain, really, or if it’s that I’ll take any opportunity that feels slightly less than an excuse and more like a reason to stare off into nothing. *** The press is running and I’m considering a slow suicide where I run up a ton of debt, smoke two packs a day and drink myself to sleep every night after housing a fast food feast, all while lying to everyone but myself. I’ll say things like: “I have a plan.” “Things are going to work out.” “I only smoke when I drink.” “I had a salad for lunch.” “I’m headed for the gym.” “Of course I can afford it.” But what I’d really be thinking, is “suckers.”

When I wake, the baby is gone. My hand rests on my flattened, soft belly, empty except for some gas. Maybe it’s left over from the dream pregnancy. Maybe it was the kimchi. He’s still asleep. I ooze out of bed. The baby is still warm in my mind, nagging like the grit in my eyes. She was dark as the night, this baby, peppered with stars that shone through her skin.  In the night, like the night, she existed. Now she’s gone. I breathe a sigh of relief, though maybe it’s just the release of a morning pee.  The night before, the baby was tropical sea blue-green, fish swimming across its little legs. It swam away as dawn broke. Tomorrow, I know, it will be red, deep like the blood that is on its way. I can feel it in my uterus, pooling, preparing to evacuate. Another month gone. I have grown to welcome these nightly visitors, manifestations of his dreams appearing in mine. A baby, the thing he says will make our family complete.  I stand in the cold bathroom and stab myself with whatever it is that I’ve been given this cycle. The doctors are always so cheerful, suggesting I consume this, inject that. They want me to know they support me, and so does the medical industry. Everyone is behind me. Pushing me.  There is a gurgle and a twinge deep in my abdomen.  It will be a blood-red baby tonight, the colour of his rage. Emma Burnett is a recovering academic. She’s big into sports, cats, and being introverted. You can find more of her stuff here .

Dzung Life sure is trippy sometimes. Take today. I’m sittin’ in a brand new ’75 Chevy Impala across from my dad. Two weeks ago, he was a Vietnamese general hopping a chopper to D.C. while I was in a friend’s bedroom smoking a bong. The end of the war thrust us into being a family again and he wants to “reconnect.” So, here I am forced to make nice and take a hike, a real one.  The car, a “token of appreciation” from the U.S. government, smells of establishment. Dad refuses to turn on the air conditioning. “It’s not that hot,” he says, as if it’s a fact. I roll my window all the way down to let the wind blow through my hair.  Dad disapproves of the length.  I'm pretty sure it was the first thing he said when he saw me for the first time in three years.  Not “I’ve missed you, son,” or “I love you,” but “Your hair is too long.” I’m surprised he hasn’t made me cut it yet. John Lennon’s Rock and Roll  is burning a hole in my backpack. It belongs to my friend, Michael. We’ve only listened to it once, but he gets me and lent it to me for the day. “Mind if I throw in an 8-track?” “An 8-track?” “Music, Dad.” I snatch the tape, pop it into the deck, and crank up the volume. “Be-Bop-A-Lula” starts to play, but I fast forward to the next song. I sing along with Lennon, “No, I won’t be afraid—” Dad hums along. I pretend not to notice. He stops. “I guess we have a lot of catching up to do. It’s been–” I stop singing and mumble, “Yeah, three years of catching up.”  Vien I’d rather be listening to Elvis Presley on the drive, but Dzung wants to play music from this John Lennon fellow. The music is more mellow than I expected, but it isn’t Elvis.  I’m not yet used to the American highway with so many cars darting about instead of scooters. I have to pay attention to my surroundings. I studied the map and committed the directions to memory, but that’s only half the battle. Changing lanes at the last minute to make an exit excites American drivers. They honk their horns and yell out their windows. I can’t picture myself getting accustomed to such behavior.   I’m looking forward to spending time with Dzung in nature. General Taylor told me about Great Falls when we made small talk on the way to the embassy.  I told him of my desire to reconnect with my youngest son, and he guaranteed me a Vietnamese American teenager would love the park, as would I. Hearing Dzung called a Vietnamese American for the first time caught me off guard. I know General Taylor had only good intentions. I’ll be sure to thank him for the suggestion if all goes well today. Dzung has opened the window and his long hair is blowing in the wind. I don’t like his desire to look American. It reminds me of the hippies and protesters I’ve seen on television, the ones who fill the streets yelling about a war they can’t possibly understand. I wonder what Dzung thinks of the war. Has he lost his tie to our homeland, now that he’s seventeen and lived in a country screaming freedom for so long? I don’t dare ask. I plan to keep the conversation light today and bring up only happy memories. I’m not confident I know Dzung anymore. Boys change so quickly. One thing I know for sure, the bahn mi sandwiches his mom made will definitely help. As Dzung sings to his music, the words ring out to me, “Stand by Me.”  Such a simple phrase, yet it holds such depth. “Stand by Me. Is that the name of the song?”  “Yeah.” “I like it. I would like to read the words later, when I’m not driving.” “OK.  I wrote them down in a notebook. It’s at home.” “Later then.” Dzung continues to sing as the concrete buildings are replaced by trees, and signs for Great Falls Park appear along the roadway. Has it already been a week since we arrived in Washington D.C. and were reunited?  I still wonder if sending him to the U.S. for schooling during the war was the best thing to do.  I suspect I appear to be a silent giant to my son. I am silent, there’s no denying that.  I need the silence to make sense of the fragments that remain in my life, to create compartments for them and file them where they belong.  The silence moves me forward.  I do not, however, feel like a giant. The end carried with it disappointment and defeat. I’m welcome here in this strange land, but never expected it to be my home. Part of me wants Dzung to know and understand that.  That, and the fact that I may not have been there for him for much of his childhood, but I am here for him now. Dzung The morning after my parents arrived in the U.S., I woke up to the smell of Phò. I’d almost forgotten what it smelled like. Spooning the broth into my mouth brought back a flood of memories: visiting Nhi Phu Temple during Tet with my grandmother and getting “lucky money,” walking through Binh Yat market to buy dragon fruit, accidentally seeing the execution picture of four Australian men who died on the other side of Cholon, our neighborhood, and being forced to wear a boring uniform of khaki pants and a blue button-down to school. I wondered where my childhood friends were now. Did they fight and die? Or did their parents send them away like mine did? As I slurped the last bit of broth from the bowl, it hit me that I’d probably never know. My parents told their story of gunfire and couriers bringing messages, of gathering belongings and sneaking through Saigon, of not being able to say goodbye to friends, and looking out the plane window at the jungle below. I heard them, but didn’t really listen. Of course I was happy they were safe. In history class, I watched the news report of the last helicopter lifting off from the American Embassy and wondered if my parents were inside. I waited for the “we have something to tell you” from my caregivers during our weekly update from Vietnam. I know it must have sucked for my parents, but all I could think about were those left behind. Those who weren’t four-star generals. Those whose grandfather didn’t own half of the Mekong Delta. The Americans who’d been abandoned.   These first few days were a blur. Instead of going to school, I had to pack my things and move into a ranch-style house in Alexandria with my parents, until we could find our own place. Mom promised I could finish out the year at Sidwell Friends, and the year after, since it would be my last. Within 48 hours, we were living like  Leave it To Beaver . Every night, we sat down after dinner as a family and watched the news, Mom with her hand covering her mouth, Dad as silent as a statue in his new LazyBoy recliner, and me knowing better than to say a word.  The hike was Mom’s idea.  After the Friday news, she said, “You and your dad are going on a hike tomorrow. It will be good for you both. I hope you don’t have any plans.” Which meant, if you have any plans, change them. Dad nodded and said, “It will be nice to spend some time with you, son. It’s been so long.” I really had no choice. There are maybe a dozen cars parked in the lot when we arrive at Great Falls Park. I grab my pack and jump out the car onto the hard pavement. I’ve heard of this park from friends. I spent most of the last three years studying. Even in summer I went to extra classes to catch up to my classmates. The Kellys were great substitute parents, but as graduates of Princeton and Harvard, they didn’t go hiking, or do much of anything outside. They buried their heads in State Department work, read books like Catcher in the Rye, and played an occasional game of Monopol. They asked about school every night at dinner, but other than that, they pretty much left me alone. I hear the roar of the falls from the parking lot and hurry along the path to find it. I’m so far ahead, Dad calls out my name. I turn and see him fiddling with a park map. Typical. I wave. “I’ll be at Overlook One. There’s a sign,” and take off. I had to come on this damn hike; nobody said I had to be attached to him like a leech. I make my way to the first falls. I’m grooving on the raging water when from behind me I hear, “Beautiful, isn’t it?” “Wicked,” I reply, “and powerful. Read the sign.” I point to the warning sign featuring a man in red slipping backwards. They’re everywhere. It reads: Warning! Steep Drops. Stay on platform.  No swimming! Rapids are Dangerous. “My friend Michael told me people die here every year. They ignore the warnings.”  Dad’s face looks blank, as always. I’ll never be able to read him. I take the opportunity to run ahead again.  “I want to see from farther away. There must be another overlook.” The second overlook is larger. More people are hanging out, oohing and aahing. I climb a boulder in the middle of a wooden platform. From up here, I can see a full view of the falls. Two small girls giggle as their father takes a picture. Did Dad take pictures of me when I was young?   A young couple turns around to leave. The woman whispers something to the man and points in my direction. I’m used to this by now, but it still stings. I watch as they scurry up the trail, almost running into my dad. They exchange words with him. “Get used to it, Dad,” I say as he enters the platform. “You can dress like them, but you’ll never be one of them.” Suddenly, the girls’ mother calls out from the end of the platform, “Ewww, honey, is that a hawk?”  The man rushes to her. A hawk is pecking on a baby rabbit. Before he stops them, the girls run to look and their giggles turn to tears. “Stop him, daddy.  Please stop him,” they plead. “I can’t, girls. It’s nature. The weak get eaten by the strong.” His wife gives him the eye, “Come, girls,” she says, “let’s get some ice cream.”  They beat it toward the visitor center. My dad pretends not to notice the family and the dead rabbit being devoured by the hawk, but I remember him as a man who misses nothing. Instead, he stares at the falls like he’s tripping on acid or something. “It does look better from farther away,” he says. I’m still thinking about the man’s words. “He’s right, you know. The man. The weak do get eaten by the strong.”   Vien Dzung jumps out of the car before I finish parking. He rushes toward the entrance like the excited little boy I once knew.  I hurry to the entrance and grab a park map from behind a plastic holder. I want to go into the visitor center to read about the history and ask what type of birds I should look for in early spring, but Dzung is almost out of sight. I call out to him. He yells back; he’s heading to the first overlook. I make my way up the steep trail, admiring the trees. They’re so different than the ones at home. The sound of the falls is almost deafening as I enter the first platform. Dzung is leaning on the railing at the closest vantage point. I curse myself for not bringing a camera.  I move close to him, but far enough away to let him have his space. The power of the water overwhelms me. I know the raging water goes farther downstream and turns calm like a sleeping baby. Nature always fascinated me, the way it changes without explanation; it has lessons to teach, if we listen.  I think about my own power: how I fought diligently to keep my country free, how blood was shed at my command, how in the final days I was forced to admit my limits. How, despite my efforts, in the end, everything I knew was gone. I should have been angry at the Vietnamese. I should have been upset at America. Instead, I’m hunkering down a stone’s throw away from the White House with a son I no longer know—a son who seems more American than Vietnamese.  I don’t notice Dzung is no longer next to me when I hear him call out, “Dad, I’m heading to the next platform. See you there.”   He starts down the trail again, as if the next waterfall is going to disappear if he doesn’t get there in the next few minutes. For a moment, I wonder if it would kill him to wait for me. When I make my way down to the second platform a young couple nearly runs into me as they scurry up the hill. The woman’s arm brushes against mine. The man takes her hand and pulls her toward him. “I am so sorry,” she says, looking me straight in the eye before putting her head down. “I didn’t see you there.” The man grumbled, “Linda, let’s go.” At the next platform, Dzung is sitting on a rock. He says something to me about what I’m wearing, but I can’t make it out over the sound of the rushing water. I go to the railing to experience the second waterfall. Not far from me, there’s a family having a heated discussion. I wonder why people would come to such a serene place and not focus on the beauty around them.  Before I know it, the family makes their way up the hill, leaving only Dzung and me behind. I walk over to him, thinking this would be a good time to have a conversation about the park and hear his impressions of it, when he jumps off the rock. “Dad, let’s go.”  I compose myself.  “OK, son. I’ve studied the map. Let’s take the River Trail along Mather Gorge. We’ll find a place to rest and eat along the way.” I see from the map the terrain is going to become flatter. With no more falls to see, Dzung will probably slow down. I’ll be able to keep up with him instead of constantly watching him disappear ahead of me. At any rate, he’ll have to stop when we eat, and it will be more natural to talk over food. Dzung The River Trail winds its way along a gorge with scenic overlooks, each one with a warning sign. Between platforms, trees stand like rows of soldiers awaiting orders, but an occasional bare patch makes venturing off alone possible. I can’t help but think how easy it would be to take one wrong step off the trail and crash into the river below. The thought of exploring beyond the trail both thrills and frightens me.   At a fork, Dad guides us away from the water toward a sign that says Patowmack Canal. We walk silently, listening to the running water and birds. I begin to wonder how we’re supposed to be catching up without talking, but if Dad’s going to hike like a monk, I can, too. Besides, I don’t exactly know what to say. I’m curious how much longer this reunion is going to last, so I cave. “Do you have a plan, Dad or are we aimlessly following trails?”   “I always have a plan,” he replies. “Well then, where are we heading?” “There’s a quarry ahead, just over that bridge. I’d like to find a rock to meditate for a while. We can eat too.” My dad: great war general, Buddhist, and yoga lover. God, how my friends will laugh at him. I stop at the end of a bridge, reach into my pack for a red bandana, and put it on my head.  I take a big swig from my canteen and watch as my dad wanders up the trail looking into the trees.  I make a mental note to add bird lover to his list of weird behaviors. As he crosses the bridge, he leans over the rails to inspect the supports below. I wish he paid as much attention to me. Vien I see Dzung stop for a drink and follow suit, watching as he covers his head with a bandana.  American soldiers would cling to this simple cloth like children embracing a favorite toy. The thought that I saved him from the realities of war made me proud as I put my canteen away.  “Only about a quarter of a mile more,” I say. The quarry is peaceful and free from other people. I retrieve two báhn mì sandwiches wrapped in tin foil and two bottles of Coca-Cola from my pack.  After biting into the soft bread and chewing the marinated pork, Dzung says, “I forgot how much I’ve missed mom’s lunches.” At last, the moment I was hoping for presents itself. “She’ll be happy to hear that.” I pause, “We’ve both missed you, son.” “I know.” “I trust you’ve adjusted to life here and have made friends?” “Yeah, a few.” “I’m proud of how good your English is and how seriously you’ve been taking your studies. But life is not pleasurable without others to share it with.” “Most kids are nice to me, but I have a good friend, Michael,who doesn't care where I’m from.  He was my lab partner last year in Bio and we’ve been hanging out ever since.” “I would like to meet him sometime.” “Sure. I’ll ask him. He’ll probably be cool with it.” I sense Dzung getting antsy with the conversation. I want his full attention to tell him how important he’s been to me, so I don’t hesitate. “I thought of you every day, son. When I prepared to meditate, I cleared my mind by thinking about your smiling face and how pleased I was that you were safe.” “Hey, speaking of meditation,” Dzung says as he examines the park map.  “You’re going to meditate, right? Mind if I take a short walk down to Sandy Landing to give you some space?” “Ok, but don’t be long. I won’t be meditating for more than twenty minutes.” As I watch him run down the path, I admire his easy adjustment, wondering how adjusted I’ll be in three years. Will I still pine for home, or will I be calling myself a Vietnamese American?   I spy a flat rock perfect for meditating and bend to take off my hiking boots. My joints hurt more than I’d expected, but I can still tolerate the added pain from the lotus position. Once I start my mantra, I’ll dismiss it anyway. Dzung Sandy Landing is just a ploy for me to get away from Dad long enough to smoke some weed.  For the last mile, all I could think about was what a groovy place this is to get high and chill. I scramble down a steep, rocky trail, but the effort pays off. I’m finally alone. I pull a joint and matches out of my pack and light up. The Potomac River flows smoothly, swirling around rocks here and there. It’s pretty cool to watch. I feel at home here. I doubt Dad ever will. I return as Dad is putting his hiking boots on.  I’m about to show him the cool walking stick I found, when he stops, one boot in midair. I wonder, what now? “What’s that I smell?” We stare at each other for the first time in years. “I don’t smell anything.” “Don’t treat me like an idiot. I’m your father. I know that smell. How do you think the American soldiers dealt with what they had to deal with each day?” “You mean they didn’t mediate?” I blurt out. “Get with it, Dad,” I say as I toss the walking stick into the nearby brush. I fling it so hard I lose my balance and fall into a small pile of old logs. One goes flying. That’s when I hear the buzzing. It grows louder before I feel the first sting on my arm. I look down as the bee darts away. “Dad, help.” I manage to get back on my feet, but a swarm of bees is circling my head.  One lands on my face, stinging me on the cheek. “Ouch!” “Run there,” Dad commands, pointing to a tree nearby. “Use your pack to shoo them away.” I do as Dad says, then watch as he takes what’s left of his Coke and pours it down his arm. The bees land there, shaking their butts in excitement. A monotonous drone fills the air. The bees lap up the soda, stinging my dad repeatedly as I watch helplessly. My dad simply closes his eyes and sits there as if in a trance. When the bees are satisfied, they fly away leaving silence once more. “Dad!” I say, staring at his arm– red and starting to swell. Vien I open my eyes and laugh. Strangely, the sting of the bees replaces the ache of my arthritis. It hurts, but it’s a good hurt. On Dzung’s face, a sting below the right eye causes his cheek to puff up. I’m certain it hurts, but Dzung says nothing.  Maybe he’s more of a man than I’ve given him credit. I’m not so sure I was so brave at his age. “We’d better get back and see to these stings,”  Dzung turns his attention to my backpack. “Look, Dad! A wood thrush.”  I’m pleased Dzung remembers my love for birds and talent for identification—a talent Dzung obviously shares. I turn to see the brown speckled bird stand on my pack pecking at crumbs. We’d heard bird songs throughout the hike, but this simple, native bird is the first to show his face. When I turn back, Dzung is standing by me. “So it is. The next best thing to a dove, don’t you think?” Author’s Note: Cao Van Vien was one of only two four-star generals for South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.  Vien and his wife left Vietnam for the U.S. in April of 1975. His son, Dzung had been sent to Washington D.C. several years earlier to attend high school. Vien did, in fact, practice Buddhism, have a love of birds, and suffer from arthritis. For a time, he kept bees and allowed them to sting him to alleviate his pain. Vien died of cardiac arrest in 2008. His son, Dzung, disappeared and was never found. Sally Simon (ze/hir) lives in the Catskills of New York State. Hir writing has appeared in Citron Review, Emerge Lit, Raw Lit,  and elsewhere. Hir debut novel, Before We Move On , will be published in June, 2024. When not writing, ze’s either traveling the world or stabbing people with hir epee. Read more at www.sallysimonwriter.com .

I could show you a photo, but it wouldn’t tell you about the green, sick smell of the rotted glue of the peeling wallpaper, black mold dappled across it like a swampy Pollock painting. I could shove your nose into the corpse of my mother’s fur coat in the closet, but it wouldn’t tell you about the horror of seeing the ribbons of animal pelt hanging piecemeal from the hanger like a river otter had been flayed to inflict the greatest suffering. Out on the brown and ruined grass of the front yard, I could have you walk a slow circle around the pile of interior-now-exterior broken furniture/soggy clothes/washed-empty photo albums/cracked-open TVs/children’s crayon pictures smeared brown with river mud/warped rare LPs/swollen boxes of cereal/lipsticks with fuzzy caps of mildew/twisted bikes pulled from the tree in the backyard/Kiddush cup used by your great-great-grandfather the rabbi /your little brother’s collection of Pokemon cards/every photograph of you and your siblings growing up that your mother ever took/bags of pale bloated nuggets of dog food that have burst their paper containers/sauté pans filthy with chemicals that swirled in the water and blister your hands if you touch them without the yellow dishwashing gloves you must use to sort through all the shit that was once the scaffolding of our lives, things that kept our memories, our schedules, our bellies full. But that still wouldn’t make you feel the danger of cutting yourself on bacteria-covered nails, chemical-soaked splintered wood, fiberglass threads. Wouldn’t make you turn, gagging, puking, from the refrigerator when you couldn’t help yourself from opening its door as it leaned crazily on that growing, growing pile. Yours, one of tens of thousands of houses vomiting their interiors, each door with a cross-hatched red circle of testimony on it, telling us who was left behind to tell the story. Elizabeth Rosen is a native New Orleanian, and a transplant to small-town Pennsylvania. She misses gulf oysters and etouffee, but has become appreciative of snow and colorful scarves. Color-wise, she’s an autumn. Music-wise, she’s an MTV-baby. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as North American Review, Atticus Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Pithead Chapel, Ascent, and others. Learn more at  www.thewritelifeliz.com .

Brandy Wore a braided chain, but it wasn’t silver and it wasn’t from Spain, it was from Delia’s. Ninth-grade Brandy was who we all wanted to be. Rhinestones on her fingernails, upside-down faces smiling at you when she held out her hands, criss-crossed at the wrists. Brandy’s name listed on the Ms. Pac-Man game at the mall. Brandy ditching the DARE assembly, smoking in the third-floor girls’ room. Brandy caught shoplifting in Caldor, and we were sure they would call the police. Brandy got away with it, and smiled when we asked her how. Brandy sneaking off during the drama club class trip to New York. Making out on the fire escape with Joey Santorini. High above us all. The rest of us watching like she was the star we’d come to see. You only have one life to live so live it wild,  was her yearbook quote. Brandy the first to get married. 19 years old. Brandy three kids before 30. Brandy works at the nursing home now. Different scrubs every day. Disney, Hello Kitty, Paw Patrol. All our grandfathers call her honey. All our grandmothers ask Brandy to do their nails.  Ivy Everybody called her Poison Ivy, but who could blame them? She dressed that way for Halloween, spent hours sewing leaves onto a green bathing suit. Ivy had an itch to get away. Took French and AP Italian when the rest of us quit Spanish after the obligatory two years, barely able to get through the menu at Taco Bell. Ivy reading college catalogs sophomore year, ranking them for their year-abroad programs. Ivy with two after school jobs, already saving up. Back pocket bulging with the copy of Les Mis  she carried everywhere. We never expected to follow her, but we wanted to see her go, wanted to know she was out there, sipping espresso in a café in Milan, dancing down a cobblestone street like Audrey Hepburn, twirling under a Parisian moon. We always thought we’d get letters from her, foreign postmarks, odd-sized paper, something we could touch, but the letters never came. Did anyone send letters anymore? Ivy didn’t. Someone said they heard she was living in Seattle. Said their cousin’s friend ran into her there, working at Starbucks.  Justine Was going to marry the boy next door, literally, and we all believed she would because they’d been going out since fifth grade. Justine + Bobby 4EVA . Only once were they broken up, for two weeks, and Justine wouldn’t date other guys, just stayed in her room playing mix tapes Bobby had given her. She liked the same songs she’d liked in fifth grade, always ordered the same ice cream (Rocky Road, extra sprinkles), shopped at the Gap because she knew where everything was. Justine getting taller year by year, still wearing the same uniform, straight jeans, white T-shirts. Justine liked what she liked. Wasn’t tempted by the new. Are you just going to stay in this town until you die , we asked her, and Justine said, What’s wrong with that? Only she didn’t. Or maybe she did. Nobody knows where Justine died, or if she did. Justine’s face on a milk carton. Justine’s face on telephone poles. A Justine TV special, a cold case, an unsolved mystery. Justine the only one of us who got famous and she never wanted to. Last seen walking home from school. Justine’s face. Justine’s face. Age adjusted. A hologram of a possible future Justine, 15 forever, but now 18, now 25, faded posters peeling from closed shop windows. A face we can’t picture now except in pixels. A digital ghost. If Justine came walking back one day would we know her? Bobby still trots out tears for anniversary specials, but some of us think there’s something shady about his eyes, think Bobby knows more than he’ll ever tell.  Kathryn Kulpa has work in Bending Genres, Flash Frontier, Ghost Parachute, Gooseberry Pie, and Vestal Review. Her stories have been chosen for Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and the Wigleaf longlist. She will always choose the shady side of the street.

I just moved here and I’m renting a room in that apartment with the engineer and his Rottweiler. There’s no washing machine so I spend Sundays doing laundry across from McGuckin’s Hardware, in the same strip mall as the 24-hour diner with the perfect over-easy eggs. It’s no small feat to perfect the over-easy egg, and Bob knows this as well as I do. It’s one of the things we share, along with our birthday on the 24th of May. His is years before mine, of course, but that doesn’t feel like it matters when it comes to birthdays. We’re Geminis. Ruled by Mercury. We get off on communicating.    We were both surprised (Midwesterners that we are) by how much the sun shines here. We marveled at the aspen leaves (which actually do quake) and the sunsets over Flagstaff Mountain that pink up the undersides of the long thin clouds hovering over Pearl Street.    There’s a mouse in the laundromat today, running from underneath the commercial strength washers, scurrying along the walls, dashing under dryers. I have sandals on because it’s summer and maybe we’ll dip our feet in the creek later. I let out a screech because what if a little bag of blood runs across one of my bare toes but then I bite my lip. I don’t want a scene. If I play it cool, no one will recognize him. I’ve taken him to the over-easy diner, the farmer’s market (which he hated, can we leave now , he kept murmuring) and the Safeway out by the movie theater without anyone pointing or staring. Bob’s the kind of guy you see a lot of in Boulder—scruffy scarf, puffy hair, shoulders up, eyes down. So, he kind of blends in if you don’t look close enough. We just walk along minding our own business, and it’s worked out fine so far.   If you’d asked me which Bob I wanted, I’d have said ‘Don’t Look Back’ Bob; skinny, sarcastic, chainsmoking. Grilling me about what I liked about him. But I got 1970s Bob. Post motorcycle accident, a little weight in his face. Singing about cabins in Utah and reminiscing about past loves. He’s probably a better companion.    I’m stacking my panties and standing on one foot, one eye on the last place I saw the mouse. Bob wipes his forehead with a faded bandana. Hot one, he croaks, his voice like sun-cracked earth in one of those sepia photographs of starving families fleeing the Dust Bowl. We could take a dip after, I suggest, shoving my pile of pastel Jockeys in my laundry bag. I imagine us on one of those big rocks past the library, our toes numb in the froth watching kayakers practice tumbling upside down in the rapids.    Usually, Bob’s up for anything, but today he seems preoccupied. The mouse skitters under the machine my stack of quarters was on and I plant my butt in a chair and lift both feet off the floor. There’s nothing to be afraid of, Bob chuckles. He has this way of making fun of me, kind of gently putting me down while making it obvious that I amuse him. He pulls a harmonica out of his breast pocket, his favorite in the key of C, and starts to blow into it. C’mon man, I whisper, looking around, they’ll recognize you for sure. Bob ignores me and starts to play the harmonica part from Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright, the song that inspired me to buy that Yamaha guitar for 200 bucks and throw it in the backseat and drive all the way out here with no plan and no job and no money.    I’m trying to figure out what this has to do with the mouse when my last load starts to slow down in the dryer, my cut-offs and tank tops slowly tumbling over each other one more time and one more time and one more time until they lie still. The mouse is scared of the music, I guess, because it’s nowhere to be seen and I stuff my clothes in my bag without folding them, just to get out of there quick before someone spots him and the jig is up. But Bob shakes his head when I gesture toward the door, my bag over my shoulder.    It’s the part of the song where you remember that this is not going to end well, that it didn’t really even start well and the tune you thought so naively was a little love song the first time you heard it ends up a quick-witted break-up song every time.    I get what he’s saying even though his face is half covered with two hands and that harmonica. But I’m not ready to be Bob-less. I just got here. I don’t know anybody, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next. I don’t even know what I came here for. All I know is I couldn’t stay where I was, and Bob has been with me all the way.    Bob stands up and walks out the back door. Down the street is the poetry school where Allen Ginsberg and all them hung out. I think maybe he’ll wander over there. I follow him and peek down the alley. Bob is headed the other way, north toward the strip club and the highway to the national park. Maybe he’ll head even farther west, I think. And then I realize other people need him, too. And I can probably do this on my own.    I hear the harmonica getting softer and softer, but Bob never does look back.    Lisa Thornton is a writer and nurse. She has work in SmokeLong Quarterly, Hippocampus Magazine, Pithead Chapel, and other literary magazines. She has been shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award and Bridport Flash Fiction Prize. She lives in Illinois with her husband and son and can be found on Twitter/X @thorntonforreal .

When You Book Us a Tarot Reading After Your Death... I show up, you are still my sister after all. You say I’m late, but it’s easy for you. You’re conveniently dead. I still have mortal duties, you know--school drop-offs, pick-ups, work, checking in on Mom, driving her to doctor appointments. Why are we doing this tarot thing anyway? Since when do you believe in tarot? You never tell me anything, never told me anything, not the important stuff anyway--not when you collapsed, not your diagnosis, or your failing health. The tarot reader picks the Death card. You snicker--funny ‘coz it’s true, you say. But I don’t laugh, this isn’t like old times. Everything’s changed now. I’m empty inside. So what if I was an ocean away? I wanted to be there for you, look after you, to tell you things I never told you. What do I do with all this regret now? There’s nowhere to put it. I’m sorry, you say. The tarot reader draws Temperance--forgiveness, letting go. I forgive you, but when I try to hug you, you’re air. See? I can’t let go. Cannot let you go. Miss Havisham Teaches English Her class begins at twenty minutes to nine. When the swish of her yellowing wedding gown and the faint smell of decay glide down the hallway, we draw the blinds shut. Miss Havisham hates bright, we’re sure she feeds on dying hope and darkness. She holds a rotting, half-eaten slice of wedding cake in one hand, and a piece of chalk in the other.  “METAPHOR” she writes on the blackboard. “Repeat after me, girls--our hearts are blocks of ice.” We mumble under our breaths--our young hearts are only now learning to beat to the rhythm of love songs--we pine, we sigh, we long to be at the school gates where the boys drive around in circles on borrowed motorbikes. We let them tease us, we let them woo us, we pretend not to care, but our hearts are furnaces burning bright--the opposite of blocks of ice. We refuse to be her. Many years later, when we’ve been betrayed and broken, jaded and numb, when we’ve learned that love doesn’t conquer all, her ghost will visit us. We will see her in the mirror then, but not now. Not now.  Hema Nataraju is an Indian-American writer, mom, and polyglot based in Singapore. Her work has most recently appeared in Best Small Fictions 2023, Emerge, Barrelhouse, Booth, Wigleaf, and 100-word Story, among others. She edits Literary Namjooning, and is a submissions editor at Smokelong Quarterly. She tweets as m_ixedbag .

He was a bit rough around the edges, but he’d do. You were bored of one-night stands, of being ghosted, of being told how [ insert ] clever [ insert ] pretty [ insert ] funny [ insert ] one-in-a-million you were. And then being dropped as quickly as the clothes he couldn’t wait to rip off your body.  At least this one turned up on time. He always paid. He always chose decent venues for their dates. He didn’t suggest going back to his place the first time they met. Or the third. Or the fifth. By date number six, you wondered if the two of you would become just good friends. Or maybe he noticed you squinting, scrutinising, checking out his footwear. You once ran away from a man who assumed moccasins were stylish. And that guy – wearing grey leather uppers – you let him buy you a drink but kept picturing him in that shop, making a definitive choice to buy those shoes. The latest in this yawning line of potential Mr Rights might not bear any resemblance to the guys you usually go for, but his trainers couldn’t be faulted. And you made it to Date Number Six before you kissed.  Am I ugly as sin ? you messaged your friend before you left. Maybe he’s a virgin , your friend replied, with a trail of laughing emojis. You didn’t feel any signs of stubble when, finally, your lips touched his. Your tongues circled, and he pressed your body so close, you wanted him to swallow you up whole. Jesus, this was worth waiting for, you thought, and let the kiss continue for as long as it could. You didn’t usually let your guard down in public places, but manners could go take a hike.  Text me when you get home , he whispered. Alone and on the tube, you remembered your first kiss, aged thirteen, that tangle of open mouths proof you were a woman. It was autumn and you turned crimson when he ignored you at school the next day. You’d never lose control again. Pleasure coursed through your body as you swiped past all those losers. You were glad you paused before you swiped past him.  He worked in the city (they all did). He was looking for something serious (that’s what they all said). I’m that diamond who’s forever  was his tagline and he had a trusting smile.  My grandparents came from Bangladesh , he told you, laughing when you said you liked his tan. My father came from Tottenham, but he died when I was 4 . As tragedy fluttered over cocktail hour, you liked his trainers even more.  You dressed carefully for date number seven. You clasped your grandmother’s pearl necklace at the back. You thought of her, outwardly upright with a wink in her smile.  You took his hand when he arrived at the subway through the rain. You turned towards him, stood face to face. Not wanting any more, you asked him, very softly, if he’d like to dance.  Lizzie Eldridge is a writer, teacher and human rights activist based in Glasgow. Author of two novels – Duende (Amazon 2014) and Vandalism (Merlin Publishers 2015) - Vandalism was nominated for a National Book Prize in Malta (where she lived for 12 years) and selected as one of the Best Books 2017 by Waterstones Glasgow. Her flash, CNF, poetry and short stories have appeared in book anthologies and journals such as Epoch, Northern Gravy, Literary Revelations, Unapologetic and Ellipsis Zine.

I feel your fingers work my hair like a jar of butterflies. You’re laying sideways on my pillow and you worry I  won’t feel you. Just your fingers. With my begging head  pressed against the pulse of your breast you trace letters  on my back for me to guess. Slow letters in a carnal code.   You say, now do me. I do. I worry you won’t remember me  either, after the skin has settled and the sun comes up and a blackberry-stained porcelain bowl rejoices in the kitchen  sink. You say, let’s not get up . But you will. And the picture  will swirl and the places will change. Eventually, after a  life  I’ll be the only one left who remembers. And I will. As  an  early  translation of a lost manuscript that I quote in my sleep  when  the feeling goes out of my body and my eyes smile politely  and my side of the bed forgets everything but your fingers. Tim Moder is a poet from northern Wisconsin. His poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Cutthroat, South Florida Poetry Journal, One Art, and others. He is the author of the chapbooks All True Heavens (Alien Buddha) and American Parade Routes (Seven Kitchens). He is a member of The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. His poems have been nominated for Best of the Net and the Puchcart Prize. Find him at timmoder.com

Tried and true fashions never seem to be in not on catwalks or clothed mannequins  a juice cleanse and diet pill racket spamming your inbox and cluttering your mind keeping their eyes on your obvious faults  imploring you to snap “before and after”  pictures so you can linger on results  we hire therapists and life coaches  for stress management  finding the obvious irony in feeling small and having to see a shrink  I thought to myself…              “I enjoy laying on the couch at home,       so why not lay upon a strangers                                      fragmenting words from a mind so clutteres                                            It's usually just devoid of motivation                                                   or resting in the gutter”  Mutter these fragments in bold italic shards soft spoken, feeling hard to say  got a sadness circa 1990-something  never confronted “I feel about this tall, doc  and I just can't seem to keep this weight off” He recommends a dietician  and some cardiovascular hogwash but I am speaking of the weight upon my shoulders and the burdens I bear picking my poisons like ripened fruit then binging until my shirt starts to swell, Hey, fruit is healthy, right? “A bowl of Apple Jacks a day keeps my therapist paid.”   ...I think this to myself and I smirk. Everything he says feels sugar coated processed is this food for thought  an overweight man feeling lesser than  paying someone else’s mortgage  with my deep down agony  “Ope, that’s all time we have for this session we’ll revisit this next week until then just do those exercises for your grief watch what you eat, and take a handful of these” I’m left wishing my body could be  half as small as these appointments  make me feel oh, the irony in feeling small and seeing a shrink Nicholas Grooms is a proud father, poet, author and musician hailing from Garden City, Kansas. He has contributed to periodicals such as Midsummer Dream House, Verse Libre Quarterly and Southwest Review, but is best known for his songwriting work with the Kansas City Chiefs. He currently resides in Austin, TX.