selected by Sommer Schafer

Subplot

My husband claims the thing that most “offends” him about my lover (“offends” is his word, versus something more predictable, like “upsets”) is that Adam’s fav...

The Four Stages of a Fire

1. Incipient The night before B’s twenty-third birthday, at the climax of the St. Louis summer heat, we come home drunk from the bar and fuck on his duvet-l...

Three Interludes

First Interlude: Signposts I search for the right word and feel the shape of it in my head, in my mouth, but the letters elude me. Sometimes you’ve got to l...

The Death of Punk

Boy plays in a three-piece punk band to quell the fire of a reflection’s tale and stitch the wounds of youth. Girl watches from the sweat-filled Midwestern base...

Driving While Dead

My children are flames. Oxygen they can get any number of ways but the most efficient is if I blow on them. My job is important—at least until they build walls ...

I’m Not Hungry But I Could Eat

I’m finishing up falafel I picked up after work when I get Valeria’s text. She’s going through it and asks if I’m free to catch up at the diner we both like. It...

The Great Bear

In the far tail of the galaxy spiral, on the third planet in the solar system, there is a strange land called Ohio. Once, large predator animals lived there. Fi...

Sons and Daughters

A sprawling area of Berlin’s central cemetery has been cordoned off due to construction, and no matter which way I turn, I find myself moving away from my goal....