One way to measure the passage of time is to count the number of days since you last had sex. I’ve lost count. I only know it’s been more than three years for me and my husband—at least with each other. I know this because
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this essay was first published in THE DEAD ARE GODS (Melville House, 2023) I am not really a believer. I suppose the best way to describe myself would be atheist, but then
Voronezh, Russia, 26 December 2018 When I got off the bus, my grandmother was there at the bus stop in her brown fur hat and long mink coat. She had owned them
I sit on the rough cement steps of a country convenience store, keeping an eye on Mom. She’s been on the phone for at least an hour. She has a pile of
What are your plans for Mother’s Day? Your question tightens my belly, squeezes my chest, constricts my throat. Your question leaves me gasping for words. Can you tell? When you ask it?
We’re slicing through the Sonoran Desert on Highway 286 in a water supply truck operated by Humane Borders. Faint yellow light rises into the sky behind the mountains, letting us know that
Existing. That was what the weeks after the funeral felt like—a string of continual stresses from the mountain of immediate family responsibilities, punctuated with pangs of overwhelming sadness, and then those sudden
They call you Bella. It’s the name you chose from the film Belladonna of Sadness. At the strip club, where you can tell them what they call you, but not how they
Acronicta leporina It’s late April in Bisbee and the sun is in the wrong place over the Swisshelm mountains for the kind of hot it is. The perry penstemons in the yard
“Call me back as soon as you get this,” the woman said on my voice mail, her voice tense. She was the director of Korean adoptions at the agency we had used
History of present illness—A 45-year-old male with no significant past medical history. His symptoms initially beganon Sunday with left ear pain and tooth pain. Also on Monday, he developed a rash over