An excerpt from the short story, “Fatty Acids,” by Rose Skelton (fiction, ’17), published at Waxwing:

Fatty Acids

It didn’t matter that it was June, Sorrel was pleased for her all-in-one jumpsuit. A sharp wind blew and rain slanted across the bare Scottish hills in the distance. In the greenhouse, between seedlings of kale, spinach, cabbage and broccoli, their tender shoots sprouting in rows from orderly trays, Sorrel straightened the jumpsuit across her shoulders, pulled the metal zip upwards until she was neatly zipped inside, and went out to the potato patch. It was Tuesday; her father was coming to stay at the weekend. She wanted to dig the first new potatoes of the season for dinner, as a special treat for them all.

The garden was twenty yards from the sea, attached to the house where Sorrel had grown up. The house had been sitting empty since her mother had died and her father had moved to London, the garden left untilled. When Sorrel had lost her job at the university and moved back to the island, her father had suggested she get the garden growing again, make a little extra money, supplement her income from the on-line teaching job she had managed to get. Sorrel had re-dug the garden herself, her hands had been blistered every day for an entire month. That was two years ago, before she’d met Daniel. He could have helped, though he wasn’t as strong as he looked. But the garden was beginning to be productive now. She spent all of her spare time in it. It was the one place where she felt at ease. […continue reading here]

In addition to a “Weep Holes in Body,” a poem published at Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Leslie Contreras Schwartz (poetry, ’11) is celebrating the release of her second collection of poetry, Nightbloom & Cenote.

Below is an excerpt from her poem, “No One Asked What Happened (And I Wouldn’t Have Had The Words),” published at Rogue Agent Journal.

 No One Asked What Happened (And I Wouldn’t Have Had The Words)

he smiled in the rearview mirror, he was driving [

 

fifteen, nine months old                      ]

 

my face [                                                                                             my back on the hood                                                                          ­

 

she arched on the screen         ]

 

swallowed                                                                                                                   no

 

carried

 

felony of the first degree                              the Texas code § 22.011 defines two degrees of the crime sexual
assault                                             the victim was a person whom the actor was prohibited from marrying
or purporting to marry or with whom the actor was prohibited from living under the appearance of being
married under Section 25.01

 

in                                                                            the throat […continue reading here]

An excerpt from the short story, “The Fall Zone,” by Laura Moretz (fiction, ’15), published at Cleaver Magazine:

 

The Fall Zone

First thing that morning, a woman told Henry his crew must not cut her tree’s branches. She looked as though she wouldn’t survive if he cut the thinnest twig from the huge willow oaks in front of her house. Fully dressed and made up before eight a.m., she clutched the notice that his crew had hung on her door knob a few days before. She argued for the integrity of the tree as though he had suggested cutting the arms off her grandchildren. A branch as large as a trunk had shot over the power lines. He gave her his supervisor’s phone number. Her hands shook as she dialed the number on her flip phone, murmuring, “murder, murder, murder.” They moved their trucks to the next house—on this road, almost all the properties had tree limbs extending over the wires.

There, a woman came across the lawn in her pajamas and a loose sweater, her arms crossed like a shelf under her breasts so he wouldn’t see them shaky and unsupported. I’ll be damned, if this isn’t the day from hell. He knew what she would say: “you can’t cut our tree” and “it will fall over backward if you take off the front” and “it has never knocked out power,” and he would have to give her his boss’s number and hold off cutting, screwing up the work flow all down the road.

But she smiled, looked right in his eyes as though he were her equal and not the angel of death, and said, “I just wondered if you might cut one of our dead limbs, too,” and she pointed, so they walked together and she showed him where a major limb jutted out, silver and leafless, on the other side of the massive trunk. “My husband wanted me to ask.” […continue reading here]

An excerpt from the story “Your Hysterical Wife” by Genanne Walsh (fiction, ’04), published at Catamaran Literary Journal:

Your Hysterical Wife

Your hysterical wife is twerking in a nightclub, look at her go. Now she’s sitting outside of Safe – way with a backpack and a pit bull. In point of fact, your hysterical wife is standing in line for artisanal ice cream; she is planting carrots; she’s replacing the register tape and clocking the hours. No, she’s kicking drunks out of a dive bar. Your hysterical wife is picking through the recycling bins on Polk Street in the middle of the night. There she is, taking up two seats on the 22 to Life bus. Your hysterical wife was last seen walking toward the Golden Gate Bridge: alert the authorities.

Let’s be honest, your hysterical wife is good at making things but not so good at taking care—she has been known, to paraphrase the incoherent pop hit from the sixties, to leave the cake out in the rain. Really, she is just trying to BART home after a shitty day at the office. She is teaching, diagnosing, emailing, snorting, sorting, shooting, defend – ing, organizing, embezzling, talking talking talking. Your hysterical wife wants you to learn everything about her and then fix it. Your hysterical wife wants you to fuck off and leave her alone.

Your hysterical wife is exhausted by her perpetual state of bewilderment. Equally, she is depleted by her endless capacity to bewilder you. […continue reading here]