AUG 2026 / ISSUE 54

Discovering Taste

by Natalia G. Sarmiento

The first tongue was a woman. Not her name. Not her story. Barely a laugh in my ear. A nape. The vapor of a body passing beside mine. The way something in me…

Intermission

by Brenna Kischuk

I rub my hands over hot sand the way I would my husband’s back, pausing over the imperfections and careful not to kick up dust. I rub my hands over his…

The Next Wave

by Julie Jeanell Leung

I don’t know how the heat begins, I only know how it rises inside me with intensity, pressing along my arms and into my face, seeking release, breaking and then…

Selective Attention

by Henry 磊磊 Roark

The ring’s cost came to low triple digits, and I wondered if I could use it one day to propose to him again. The next week, I met a man named Chance at a Polaroid…

Calexico, 1993

by Diana Dinerman

Deep in the Cuyamaca mountains sits an old mining town called Julian, known for its apple pie. How we got there, I don’t remember, but we took my father’s gold…

With a View

by Danielle Buynak Horner

Further down Thomas Jefferson Parkway, beyond the confederate flag and past the s-curves, there's another huge wound of trees pulled from the earth. Red clay…