Filter by Issue
Filter by Type
Filter by Topic
Search by Keywords
Write About This Life
I let a squirt of Purell cover my palms. I punch in the code to open the locked ward door and let myself in. An aide is loudly calling bingo numbers, competing with the din of the Boston Philharmonic on the television. Of the eleven people in the room, only one is even looking at her bingo card.One Morning in Maine
The L.L. Bean catalog arrives in early June, in an avalanche of hospital bills, condolence cards, and COVID-19 reopening announcements from Red Lobster and the Pinch a Penny pool supply store that proclaim, Jeffrey, we want you back!Thin Place
We’ve entered the thin place again, where the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead feels as if we could rip it open with a breath. We make altars to our beloved dead, arranging flowers and symbols around their fading photographs.The Oddity
Let’s say I was twelve, though thirteen or ten is just as likely. Our class waded across a dark shed in Wisconsin, past spotlit jars and a hand-carved sign: Nature’s Oddities.Sisters Making Dinner
This party’s over, my sister says her patient said. Then my sister lifts her chin and says, Where is the fresh mozzarella? This was right before she died. The patient, not my sister.Nashville: March 3, 2020
The night of the tornado, I let you sleep. I let you stay caught in restless dreams beneath the thin blankets, the taut shape of your body like the land beneath a dusting of snow. You pulled the sheet over your head. You were a ridgeline, a burial mound. I made the bed around you and sat by the window.The State Fair
Four teenage girls lived at the group home where I worked in my twenties. They went to public school, made friends, and sometimes did typical teenage things like go to prom or try out for the tennis team.Serving
There were warnings. There were no warnings. Slipping into my black boots and olive flight suit, braiding my hair, pressing my name tag on my breast, zipping my B-4 bag, kissing Cowboy goodbye, I was leaving.Renovations
The necessary folly of rebuilding a home in a world on fireIssue 77
My Mother’s Crown
1. My ragamuffin family walked the fairway at the Oceana County Fair, wild among the bright booths. This circus rainbow was staffed by sweaty men—Dad called them “carnies”—all calling out like preachers, urging us to shoot ducks, toss rings on bottles, throw darts at targets, capture the softest bear in the world.