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The Boy
By Franz Jørgen Neumann Martin is smitten the first time he sees the woman with the sexy nose. Neither pixie nor Roman, Jenny’s nose is longer than most, with comely nostrils. He tries not to stare as he takes the key she offers him. He thanks her for the bag of warm rolls, then carries…
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A Better Man
by Anthony Abboreno Claudette and Adam stood outside their RV, staring at the fish Adam had caught. Claudette hadn’t realized anything that huge grew in the Mississippi. It was the size of a Saint Bernard, its flesh gouged with scars like trails on an old mountain. Now, it lay in an inflatable wading pool decorated…
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wild
by Rebecca Callahan wild/wīld/ adjective: wild; comparative adjective: wilder; superlative adjective: wildest 1. (of an animal or plant) living or growing in the natural environment; not domesticated or cultivated. A small girl in a photograph: lined up with siblings and cousins, standing at the edge of her parents’ property, tangled hair hanging to her waist,…
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If I Could See You In Miami
By Connor Watkins-Xu 1993 Young, younger, your mother, states away. No onecalls you crater-faced. You get to be Stephanie for a while. Summer goes until December, and boys love to hear you sayY’all are crazy down here, your Alabama accent in the ear for a moment, like sun-showers on beach-burned skin.You don’t have to worry…
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Aphrodite as a Fat Woman
By Elizabeth Higgins I. Seventh grade humanities class. Ancient Greece.Each table group is a city-state. Each teacher is a god. I sit in the southeast corner of Corinth.Our teacher stands in front of the class and tells us she is Aphrodite. There’s snickering because the idea is absurd,the comedic formula familiar: fat woman thinks she’s…
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Strange Effects on the Body
by Sophie Panzer My nosebleed starts seven days after my parents’ funeral. The virus takes them quickly, my mother right after my father, that first plague winter. I do not invite anyone to the cemetery with me except the rabbi. People offer to come anyway, but I refuse—it seems wrong for the living to risk…
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Two of Every Kind
By Lauren Osborn And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you. — Genesis 6:19 On the first day of the end of the world, she finds a spider in her kitchen. Or perhaps it’s not the end of the world, but…
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Raging at the Fruit
Tiffany Promise Death appears at my door with a fistful of roses. Plastic bags tug at her wrists, but she won’t let me see what’s inside. I imagine a heart-shaped box full of tiny bones, a ribbon of molted snakeskin, chocolate-covered somethings. “Cherry,” she growls, pushing me inside the house, hard against the hallway wall. My…
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Stories I Tell Myself
By Amanda Auchter Tomorrow I will dieif I eat this pear. If I eat this perfect almond, thisapricot. A whole bowl of fear at my fingertips—lips numbed, breath out of breath. Once,I boarded an airplane and began my ascentof panic. I begged my husband to ask the flightattendant to ask the pilot to turn the…
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I Never Claimed It Was a Human
by Clara Risser I have been walking around with a dead baby inside me for five weeks now. My body doesn’t know it’s dead. “Your pituitary gland is not getting the memo,” the midwife tells me, eyeing blood work that proves how confused my body is. I picture my pituitary gland as a young soldier…
