Being the Murdered Artist

Cathy Ulrich

You will be his classrooms full of eager students, the flattering articles about his work (a genius, they will call him, a genius, footnote your death as something he has overcome), you will be the spaces in between the lines, the hollow in the breaths he takes before he speaks, the shadow under his heels.

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How to Wear Your Eyes on Your Wedding

Mandira Pattnaik

Line your eyes with hands like magician’s wand, black kohl, make them whirlpools, not arrow-spewing stares, between dark and light, not bright, never moon, nor boot-shine, not coy, never bold, not meeting the groom’s glance, nor his mother’s.

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Why the Ocean is Salty

Kimberly Ramos

There is a giant. He is a builder named Ang-ngalo, created by God, sent forth to create the world. God wants Ang-ngalo to be a good builder: silent, hardworking, deferential. But Ang-ngalo is so tired of building.

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To Have Fought

Devaki Devay

Gatik had never seen a peacock grow so tall in his vision. Usually he watched them from a distance, their elegant crowned silhouettes too perfect to truly be animals.

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City Tree

Cathy McArthur Palermo

“The woman has been slamming this tree for a week. Each day I join my cats who peer out the window.”

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