Salsa

by Christin Rice

Originally published on February 1, 2011

She concentrated-posture, frame, steps, smile-but by the time the song ended she couldn’t help smiling, beaming really, and her partner let her go with a “gracias,” and a slight bow.

In the Alzheimer’s Ward at Saint Jude’s

by Daniel Lawless

Originally published on February 1, 2011

Stalling, not wanting to stare, I stare Into the ragged day-room’s aquarium, Unesalle fantastique sous la mer Un-updated since pin boys crouched on planks: Drifts of plastic coral like multi-colored mud, fake rocks, A tiny wreck and treasure chest, the yellow ape In cast iron boots I take to be my alternate In uselessness. Wisps [...]

Boys in the Bank

by Jeanne Althouse

Originally published on February 1, 2011

On the weekend we’re at a family barbeque at the local park—I’m surrounded by at least thirty family members. And motor Mama reminds me, as she serves me one of her giant barbeque

Bob Payne: A Traveling Man

by Derek Alger

Originally published on February 1, 2011

I was recently returning from visiting my sister and her kids in Ontario when I thought of Bob Payne, a travel writer whose articles have appeared in Conde Nast Traveler, Islands, Outside, Men’s Journal, and Bon Appetit, as well as the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, and Dallas Morning News.

Float

by William Stratton

Originally published on February 1, 2011

If I had drowned in the rolling black waters of the Chenango, passing down the valley between the county roads, my hands palm down, my face drawing the muddy bottom upwards with litters of old leaves and rotten logs, the bloated white of my skin dark against the snowed banks, all of time left to [...]

Chosen

by Jennifer Ruden

Originally published on February 1, 2011

By noon we are wasted and the music thumps and Maureen’s cake is gutted in the center of my dining room table. I am tempted to tell my neighbors to go home

We Are All Together in the End

by Scott Tucker

Originally published on February 1, 2011

Thunderheads gathered over the green mountains every afternoon into a sure rainstorm, and yet they moved off to other valleys before the rain fell. The truth about life is

We will go naked

by Barbara J. Daniels

Originally published on February 1, 2011

We will go naked small as dolls. We will be hoisted, one angel each, strong armed, heavy wings smelling of lilacs. Falling below us, flailing trees, buildings like hymnals. Lust, et cetera, will be forgotten, envy of breasts, pride in curled hair. Demons will snatch at our sloughed skins. Our souls turned to spheres will [...]

Treason

by Kristofer Creed

Originally published on February 1, 2011

Their youth shaken, salt over sands: futures, minds, limbs, and eyes, poured down into thankless hands. Laurels – days as hollow as a tin cup dragged down spit shined streets where whorish moans echo through, every corner’s meet and greet. Sons of Priam from the street wave drunken flags at grim parades yet never will [...]

Roxana Robinson

interviewed by Derek Alger

Originally published on February 1, 2011

Roxana Robinson is a critically acclaimed fiction writer who is the author of four novels, including her most recent one, Cost (Picador, 2009), which was named one of the five best novels of the year by the Washington Post, won the Maine Fiction Award, and was long-listed for the Dublin Impac award, among others. Her other novels are Sweetwater(2005), This is my Daughter (1999), and Summer Light (1995).