selected by Sara Crowley

Mr Tanaka Needs Some Rest

The terminal feels bigger on the night shift, the shops dark and shuttered, the jumbo jets stood down and nosing at the windows. My shoes squeak on the vinyl a...

Hiding from Mary

I’d seen her for months in my Oakland hills neighborhood. In her ill-fitting reflective safety vest near Safeway where I bought the Lunchables my two children ...

LANDSGEMEINDE, APPENZELL

Between May 31st and August 18th of 2019, a photograph hangs on the wall of The Morgan as part of an exhibit on crowds and groups and proximal strangers. Black...

The World I Will Not Taste

At first light there is a world in my ribcage. I fasten it shut with a clink and throw away the key. I’ll use it another time, I say to myself. I ponder vib...

Here’s How It Works

Let’s say you’re eight years old and you get that birthday party you’ve been longing for, the one with all your friends from school, and you can hardly believe...

Hive Mind

The mothers are coated in a light layer of fuzz, but only the children have ever noticed. As babies, it was a velvet comfort, hazy and unremembered—a soft plac...

The Forgiving Kind

I once met god at a bar. At least, he said he was god. Or maybe a god. I don’t remember the semantics. He was tall and had dark hair and green eyes, the kin...

The Road Ahead

I took the ramp hard, swerved back and forth over the rumble strip as we exited the highway. Onward, a New York City reservoir on my right, down a steep embank...

Leviathan

Polar bears are nesting in the freezer again. Twelve this time, lively and rambling, sleeping on our packets of frozen peas, humping each other on our ice c...

The Idea Of It All

Nearly every time I go home, my dad mentions the knife I gave him. A filet knife given for birthday or Christmas or Father’s Day. I was proud of the gift at th...