Johnny would say nothing; concerned he would be taunted by his older brothers Leny One N and polio-legged Tommy Tom Tom who told him he didn’t have a for real birthday like other humans did. They resented Alice informing their father that day when four-year-old Johnny had discovered the father’s eighty proof bottle of Strega […]
V The boy’s mother comes out of the cleaners carrying her sequined handbag and a pain between her shoulder blades. She steps off the curb and winces. The streets are always too crowded when I leave, she thinks, wishing they’d let her come in earlier as she whisks around the legless man perpetually posted […]
The wild light of dusk laid everywhere, permeating the gaps between buildings and forcing itself high across the bowl of the sky so that one felt weighted down with all the colors, filled in with the sun’s last stand on this face of the earth. He’d left his uncle in his office closing down […]
Nothing ever works out how you plan. That’s an old trick that ticks and trickles relevance to the point we hate it deep down for proving true. Because that chaos is an integral part of being we also harbor elaborate dreams and plan lofty ends for ourselves, acting them out even while knowing they will […]
As he neared the wharf dock, he could tell his uncle would be free. He didn’t know what time it was, but he guessed he’d got up sometime past noon and the market had by now wound down completely. He hoped his uncle was still there, as the only people who usually stuck around were […]
I The boy woke up to the bread man’s song, blaring distorted from the loudspeaker’s funnel haphazardly attached to the roof rack by cut up and twisted coat hangers. He was sweaty, caught in the rays of sun broken only by the window bars which cast patterned shadows on the wall behind his head. […]
From my tree perch, high above the playground jungle gym, two girls gather blossoms. What near-pubescent sirens they are! One, in blue, her jersey flowered Swedish yellows, a clothier’s catalog girl, a Gap-for-Kids girl, a golden Hanna-Andersson model. The other in black – black curly hair, black Nikes silvered by Hermes wings, black double-knee sweats […]
He’d never say a word to her. He’d remain strong, unscathed, a man, her father. He’d place no weight on her, and she would remain his warrant, a ticket to continue, though he would move on unreachable, the sun could not warm his skin, the cold could not leave from the trees, Ann could not […]
by Leigh Phillips I was twenty then and we were pushing a Subaru through the clouds that hung low over the waistline of Southern Pennsylvania, and South we dipped, our constellations were heavy and the headphones hugged my head. Bass notes dragged me deeper into the groove of hour, collapsing on hour; you smelled like […]
