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A murder of five echoed the muddy rush refusing my skinny oak arms, pop cans and cardboard scarves scolding my hand. A barge chewed the center current, a brown rat piloting an empty gallon jug in its wake. I asked the crows, Why am I here? Five eyes rolled north as the rat tacked the …

Side Notes from the Archivist by Anastacia-Renée (HarperCollins, 2023) This most recent collection of poetry from Anastacia-Reneé, Side Notes from the Archivist, is rich with beauty and nostalgia, a vivid plumage of detail and unflinching intimacy. The author invites us to experience an archive through the voice of the archivist and their side notes. In …

“You need money?” her mother said, and her voice sounded faint, as though she’d called from a million miles away. Sasi picked at one of the loose threads on her quilt. She knew her mother expected her to say no.  “No, I took out the maximum student loan, and my meal card is good for …

The day is clear with light, cool winds blowing from the west.  I launch my kayak from a sandy beach on the edge of Crane Prairie Reservoir. It is a large lake, blue and diamond-studded when the wind blows, a glass mirror when it doesn’t. Its shore is twenty-two miles in length, most of which …

The Grim Reaper holds a potluck on the second Saturday of every month, and I received my first invitation last week. Via email. We’ve only met twice. Once, a year ago, when my brother died of head trauma after a motorcycle accident. Grim waited in the corner of the hospital room like a hooded shadow, …

from the Jeopardy! category “Acronyms & Mnemonics:” You never really understood your generation’s obsession with space: not Star Wars, not Star Trek (the two of which you always confused), & certainly not actual space. Why would anyone want to go there—where the tethers were givens, more literal & restrictive than any tethers that bound you …

After my husband’s death, grief blinded me, perhaps, mercifully, so that I could not see how it would strip from me even the simplest of pleasures. In the spring, when once I had wandered the forest still wet with rain, and greedily plucked wild chanterelles, I found myself walking past them, leaving them to the …

Add water from the tap — one cup — Who knows what recipes You’ve found, Chilling the water or heating it up. Wen shui is fine, just right. Add it to the flour, stir to make dough. You’ll need more strength than that to knead a dumpling pi that holds up to steam and soup …

We are baking a cake and nothing is wrong I do not have a pit in my stomach Lina comes in licks chocolate icing off the side of your hand I am unfazed in fact, the evening is still entirely ours you’re wearing your dead mother’s checkered apron, and we talk until our words drift …

ugly as the day I was born I carry my girlhood like an apology scraping dead selves off the soles of my feet onto the pavement onto the organic produce at Whole Foods onto my lover’s best pillowcases a sorry sight elsewhere a perfect specimen soft spoken unstained underwear graceful even in death my god …