Things Are Different Now

by Karen McIntyre
Every morning, I make a neat grid with 10 perfectly square boxes, each square worth 100 calories, and that’s what I get for the day.

Brooklyn Bridge

by Grace Shuyi Liew
As soon as I’m released to the store floor, I turn against the company. I scan every third item the customers bring to the register. Buy one item, get two free.

Height Determined by Distance

by Tommy Dean
We’re in the car again. Dad drunk and playing with the radio from the passenger’s side, his knuckles bruised and swelling. He takes his anger out on the walls.

In the Museums of Heaven and Hell

by Goldie Goldbloom
On either side of the halls of Heaven and Hell are the great glass-fronted cases displaying the glories of this world.

The Faith Healer

by Ciera Horton McElroy
We don’t know why he came. Ours is not a big city. There are no stadiums, no conference centers, no airport hotels to fill with hosannas. Instead, he has a folding chair at the farmer’s market.

I Baked a Cake as Big as Our House

by Anna Mantzaris
I started small. Bite-size cookies, mini brownies, tiny tarts and hand pies a 4-year old could cup like a fragile butterfly.

The Marked Book

by Sean Gill
The boy begins by saying he has killed a spider, a Goliath among spiders, a monster dangling from the ceiling on a strand of gleaming silk, the grossest thing he has ever seen.

Points of Entry

by Abbie Barker
Sometime before dawn, my son climbs into my bed. “The bat woke me,” he says.

Wandering Boy

by Jim Gish
We did not have to turn off the radio. My father told the mechanics, Ron and Pete, that it had a burned out tube. They just nodded. They knew better.