Short Stories

• Jellyfish in a MudBath - The Remix January 12, 2012

  He was doing something technical. Explaining the process as he went. Poking graceful fingers into the belly of the machine, plucking at the long strands and loops of intestines, which weren’t intestines at all but rather wires that had been banded to...

• Sundress April 19, 2011

  Once the blindfold was off, the bright light of day stung her eyes and she could see her own nakedness stretched before her—the way her hipbones jutted out, tiny wings with no feathers. They made her think of science class skeletons. Beneath this pap...

• The Great Coffee Shop Scene April 25, 2010

  “I don’t know you anymore.” That’s what he told her. “Well, that makes two of us,” she said. Her latte was getting cold. Irrelevant. She wanted a shot anyway. Something that would burn going down—something that would counteract the fact that he was still breathing.

• Golden Shirt, Red Door December 7, 2009

  She was lying on the couch when it struck her . . . staring at the terra cotta pots, which were mottled, their bottoms turning dark, standing out against salmon-shaded soapstone towers and bowls that served as her only concession to frivolous decoration. The color combinations made her think of Mexico—a casita in Chuburna done up in burnt orange and lemon yellow. Plus, Mexico always made her think of doors.

• Benecio and the Human Resource Issue December 5, 2009

  Potica prayed to God all the time now. She thought that her name alone should have been reason enough. People never got it right—Paw teet zah, not Po teek ah. Her mother said it was Slovenian. They were not Slovenian—they were Anglo-Saxon, as in White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. She assumed, therefore, that the name had some special significance. When she asked, her mother simply shrugged her shoulders and said, “It’s a kind of sweet bread. Your father liked it.”

• The Day They Planted Grass (Was the Last Day She Loved Him) December 5, 2009

  The sky would turn peach. Then the fence. Next, the hibiscus would fall out of shadow, deep red centers budding in the black. The white flies would come awake and flutter; they would begin their lazy leeching of the leaves.

• Jellyfish in a MudBath February 14, 2008

  He was doing something technical. Explaining the process as he went. Poking graceful fingers into the belly of the machine, plucking at the long strands and loops of intestines, which weren’t intestines at all but rather wires that had been banded to...