In Conversation

The Teeth of the Years The great machinery of life grinds in silence while everyone inside it disappears. Nobody hears the little bones of the years being chewed. We wake up, clock in, stand beneath the white lights of places built to keep us busy, then go home and call it a life. Soon enough, …

The Great Funeral Home Candy Bar Heist 1. “I’m telling you guys, last Halloween me and my cousin trick-or-treated Dombrowski Funereal Home and they were giving away full-sized Snicker bars,” Skiba said. Brian didn’t buy it. He’d come to a point in their friendship where he doubted every word spouted from Skiba’s lips. In the …

Friar Tuck I was wondering if Friar Tuck was an intentional Spoonerism, an invitation to experience the most fun that anyone can have without laughing. Was horizontal dancing being suggested by the name or am I taking deconstruction to academically ridiculous lengths and reading too much into this? Answers on a postcard, please, as they …

Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra Shoot At the Stars No couch could cushion our lives, and I think of Ava and Frank driving into the desert, restless as two honey badgers in spirited flirt. Under that big night sky of back talk spin, Frank grabbed his gun from the glove box and began shooting at …

For the Duration  by Heather Flescher from Collapse Press Heather Flescher’s For the Duration is a collection that refuses distance. It is not content to be admired from afar as an exercise in craft alone; it insists on intimacy. Through a blend of narrative poetry, memoir, prose-poems, and personal reflection, Flescher creates a work that …

May God Grant Us the Blessings of a Cheap Used Car The bus comes when it wants. If it does. Today, it zips by me as I stand on the curb, waving my hands, while the rain floods my shoes. I’m late for work. Or will be. Didn’t bring an umbrella. 20 minutes ago, the …

Red Shoes This is what happens The morning after you die Your wife has been up all night crying Then she calls the caregiver And he and she dress you In the tuxedo tee-shirt you loved And the bright red sneakers that you also loved (I hear that the angels often want to wear them) …

the pizza delivery guy from elegant pizza seems concerned about me on a friday evening and i don’t have the heart to tell him that i’ve been flirting with the sicilian pizza at vesuvio’s the pepperoni from bay ridge’s best that sometimes i get a craving for won tons and egg rolls from lucky chinese …

They Control Your Image We were called to the middle of the plant for an impromptu meeting. I was afraid it was going to devolve into another lecture on bathroom breaks. Management hates it when anybody poops on the clock. Despite there being more video surveillance cameras than a PornHub taxi trained on the bathroom …

Muzzle There is a key in my throat but it belongs to someone else. When I try to speak the sound comes out like a chair dragged slowly across the floor of an empty church. They say you should be grateful. So I nod. The ceiling leaks pennies. The walls have ears that whisper almost …