Contributor Spotlight Born in 1941, Toi Derricotte grew up in Detroit, and when she thinks of her childhood, she remembers fear. “I had a need to be with people, but I was afraid of doing something wrong or saying the wrong thing.” Her parents were getting divorced, a beloved grandmother had died, and Derricotte, an…
Penn Station, March 1991 I’ve been homeless down here so long I didn’t give up the worship of Jesus Now I got my own room but it’s not in my apartment And God is a good god And children if you’re on that crack don’t get addicted Because me I waited too long…
My new breast is two months old, gel used in bicycle saddles for riders on long-distance runs, stays cold under my skin when the old breast is warm; catalogue price, $276. My serial number, #B-1754, means some sisters under the skin. My new breast my new breast is sterile, will never have cancer. Once…
MASTHEAD Guest Editor Marilyn Hacker Editor Don Lee Poetry Editor David Daniel Assistant Editor Jodee Stanley Founding Editor DeWitt Henry Founding Publisher Peter O'Malley Editorial Assistants: Heidi Pitlor, Maryanne O'Hara, and Nathaniel Bellows. Intern: Monique Hamzé. Fiction Readers: Billie Lydia Porter, Anne Kriel, Barbara Lewis, John Rubins, Karen Wise, Loretta Chen, Todd Cooper, Michael Rainho,…
Sprawled on the back of a flatbed truck we cradled hoes, our minds parceling rows of cotton to be chopped by noon. Dawn stuck in the air. Blackbirds rang the willows. Ahead, a horse trailer stretched across the road. Braced by youth and lengths of summer breeze we didn’t give a damn. We’d be…
i. Do they hate each other, I wonder, she who will live on and he who is dying? I fill their bird feeder with safflower. Each dip of the orange pitcher scatters seed from its lip to the earth, in ecstasy. An arc. A small rain falls down. Bruised light a nacre over everything. My…
If you don’t like these stories, you should’ve read the ones I didn’t take. Even though that’s not accurate, it’s probably the only thing I could say in this space to truly arrest the attention of the curious soul bent on simply reading a few good stories (which, in fact, he/she will find here). But,…
Peter had always been more than thoughtful in not pressing her about her past, and Beatrice was sure it was a reason for her choice of him. Most men, coming of age in a time that extolled openness and disclosure, would have thought themselves remiss in questioning her so little. Perhaps because he was a…
1 Honey’s sweetness thins in steaming tea; a drop of honey thickens to amber on the pantry counter. Oh, the sweetening dank, the dark I inhale: come on the sheets on which my lover naps. A rolled-up paper uncoils in a whisper: come is a rose is a star is a monster….
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