The Induction Why the deli had a fourteen-page application for a sandwich makerwas beyond me. For God’s sake, a two-year-old could make a sandwichif you showed her the ropes. And the questions were absurd:How would your friends describe you? Where do you see yourselften years from now? When I got to, What is your greatest fear?on page eight, I’d had it. What kind of deli in a strip mallhas to know that? I just needed money to cover the rentwhile I found a way out. A way out of that suffocating town,not a way out of my life. I was sick of the gossipabout who was on top and who…

American Parable When I was ten, my father handed mehis rifle and said, “Go, take a hike.” I felt honored to be trusted,and stayed out all day to prove I could stay out all day. Latein the afternoon, I found myself standing on the mountain above town,and looking down I saw my father’s house, small and whiteon the outskirts near the railyard. Above me, the skygaped unbounded. I can’t say why I raised the rifle and firedinto the zenith of that void— the report feeble, the shot Dopplering off,swallowed by the silence that ensued. As I waited, the absence grew,and I began to fear the fall. Would the bullet return,and…

Outstanding She snorted crank on her pinky nail from a Carmex jar. They were still milk glass and I liked small things,so she said ten bucks and I meant full. She seemed trustworthy or her hair was niceor she looked me in the eyes more than twice. My hair, longer than hers, walked the stage withLoveliest Locks, dirt straight and clear of crank. She was so kind to take my money and run,each day that bad year, looking me in the eyes sort of smiling,sort of getting me here. Bradley David Waters is a California-based visual artist and writer of poetics, beyond-genre, and creative nonfiction. His work appears in DIAGRAM,…

Blueberries I’m seduced not by their plumpness, northeir sometimes-sour midnight skin,but rather by how your tall frame bendseach morning at the low freezer drawer,hoists the big bag, pours a clanking handfulinto your bowl, then (beep-beep-beep,vrrrrrrrr) heats them in the microwaveto grace your Scottish oatmeal. It’s not their sweetness, no, it’s the routine—how it creeps into our lives blindlywith its cool quietude, its fresh comb of honey—that makes me want to grasp too tight.I am, after all, my father’s daughter;his gritted teeth, his flex-jawed smile,they’re also mine. But I want us held fastby something more than my fixed gripand stronger than my small fingers;something intangible, reliable, tender. I’d like to draw…

Downsizing My new neighbor is out there again, this time plunking weeds from his flower beds into a plasticbucket. Yesterday he used his shrieking leaf blower to wreak havoc on his six-foot-squareAstroTurf lawn, sending yellowed magnolia tree remnants flying into the street. When he and hiswife moved into our retirement community of manufactured homes a month ago, I said hello onthe sidewalk. We chatted about where we used to live. He said: We downsized from a five-bedroom house on a half-acre in the foothills. What we used to do. I said: I was regional directorof human resources for a hotel company. Now as I see him through my window working…

Dispatch from the second morning of my sixth migraine hospitalization When the nurse wakes me up at 5:30am to ply me with electrodesI literally scream my way out of a dream. Apparently Thorazinecan pull your QT like taffy, and if it gets too long you’re out of luck. I pass my EKG and am awarded a gelatin capsule with a hundredtiny pearls in its casing, a pharmaceutical crown. They give youthe Benadryl first so you don’t fly out of the cuckoo’s nest when they startthe drip. In other fun facts, it turns out squeezing Thorazine through your veins makes your noseso stuffed that even as the drip pulls you under,…

Cleaving, We Respond to a Fascist To crack open a window shreds the spider’s workas to smash an egg along the sharp glass rim kills possibility,defunct already. Soon enough all will be broken. A zipper shreds cloth I can’t hold together, teethplacid, irrevocable. One guest leaves behind a hair fastenerand so, like cirrus, her white mane flows freely down her back. She won’t return here to claim it.We are all near death but speak only about the stateof our days in a world coming apart. If we say “seamless” or “inevitable” or one such word cowardswill use to mask their horror at helplessness we jointhe pack, don’t we, foregoing agency…

Black Feathers It’s time to stoop and gather up black feathersfrom corners of the run we built, its sidesa type of chain mail meant to bar the mostdetermined predator. One found the onlyhole we missed, squeezed small and burrowed into stun our pullets one by one—the chickswe named and trained to trust our clumsy handsas if our care could keep them safe. This morninga stillness tipped me off to what I’d find.Though we spent hours fashioning this fortress,death outspent us, fueled by one sure thing:it would outlast us, worming its way in. April Lindner is the author of two poetry collections—Skin (winner of the Walt McDonald First Book Prize from…

Burlesque “The doctor told meI have a beautiful bosom,”Memere announces at 80.My sister and I exchange glances,but not surprised.She always tells us, “wear a braeven when you sleep–you will havethe bosoms of a young womanfor the rest of your life!” In the mornings, her bra entersthe kitchen before the rest of her,stiff and pointed like ancient pyramids. Memere’s claim is, once upon a timeshe was in burlesque.Like many of Memere’s stories,we are not sure if it is true.It’s possible. She performswhile she vacuums, swerving, beltingout songs loud like Ethel Merman.My sister Karen and I call her“Ethel Memere.” Memere crochets and fishes.“It teaches you patience,” she says,and teaches me to clean…

A Review of Romeo and Juliet Silly plot. They die before the drama begins—raising children, paying the mortgage, deciding where to go on vacation,when he likes the Alps and she the Riviera. It’s over before she complainshe comes too fast then falls asleep, before he rues her lost figureor the way her nose, in age, turns like her father’s. How long beforeshe pegged his friends as bores? I’d have seen them liveand suffer more. Valerie L. Egar‘s poems have been published in Barrow Street, Lullwater Review, The Closed Eye Open, and other journals. Her creative nonfiction essay, “Cross Stitch” is forthcoming in The Literary Forge Magazine. When she is not…