No Contact: Closing Time
Love On The Weekend
by Shannon Wolf
The concrete was grinding underneath our shifting feet, we were stopping and starting between the abandoned cartons of doner meat on the ground, shunting and spilling their slaw.
Flavors of Wealth
by Lucy Zhang
She asked my mom ten years ago to bring Lancôme makeup from the United States. At the time, I didn’t realize you wore makeup outside of stage performances. Now she has a husband who can buy her brand name goods—my mom doesn’t know what to bring anymore for the next visit to China.
It’s Yours
by D.T. Robbins
It’s 1 a.m. My son comes into my room, tells me he can’t sleep.
I go, “Why can’t you sleep?”
He shrugs, “I don’t know. Something’s wrong with my brain.”
“What part of your brain?”
He points to a place on his brain.
Highway Elegy
by Liza Stewart
The well, the strip mine, the grain co-op, the garment factory, the mobile New York City morgues will be left behind or begin again. The burger will say I am here it is now you are a body and you are alive.
Conversation Partner
by Ross Showalter
“I think someone I know is dead,” I tell the ASL interpreter after the shift ends, when we are about to go our separate ways for separate bus rides home. “We haven’t spoken in a while. I bought a Ouija board because I want to talk with him.”
The Descent of Man
by Mike Nagel
My dad said that in the last weeks of his life, my grandfather went from eating solid food to eating baby food to eating nothing at all. A whole life in reverse. It reminded me of a poster I'd seen once, done in the style of those human evolution drawings. On the left side was a baby in its cradle. On the right side was an old man in his grave. In the middle was a man standing upright, in the prime of his life.
Scheduled Delays
by Avitus B. Carle
Every Wednesday, the wife’s lover begs her to stay.
Every Wednesday, the wife says she will, then leaves before her lover wakes. There are pancakes to be made and her husband deserves to know.
The Full-Figured/Fat Woman and the Full-Mouthed Frog/Prince
by Exodus Oktavia Brownlow
When I stand, I am taller but I cannot hop as high as I used to. You tell me, compromise, see how fast you can run. When I do, the land is not as far-distanced as before.
Yards slip by in seconds. Miles melt down to minutes.
White Wolf
by Emily Lowe
She had once spent her days running through underbrush. “The forest was shrinking, and so were we.” She was part of a pack and then suddenly wasn’t. We took long walks through Crown Heights, past brownstones and steel apartment complexes.
28: .22/27
by Nathaniel Berry
My dog pays nightly respect to the horse skull that rests among the roses growing between the roots of our Siberian Elm. White skull with empty eyes dark and bottomless as the barrel of a gun. My dog knows more about Death than I do.