THE MIDNIGHT SHOWING AT THE DRIVE-IN THEATER The loudest thing in his ears was the scrambling of pebbles down the mountain’s face and Giang wondered if this is what he would hear if someone detonated nuclear weapons inside Antarctica’s frozen heart. He reached up, straining with the effort, and his fingertips pressed against random indentations. [...]

MIGRATION CYCLES I am a puppy. I have a black nose which is always wet to the touch. My tongue is small and red. My head seems slightly larger than it should be for the size of my paws; the pads are soft and uncracked. They feed me small pieces of cooked meat under the [...]

IT’S NOT YOU IT’S ME You are a distance measured from counter-edge to closet door. You are infinite paces and each footfall transmits through skin three diatribes, spoken softly (not quite a whisper): The gown was red or black and it did not fall in waves, as proper gowns and proper girls ought to fall. [...]

HOW TO BE A GRACIOUS GUEST I had few expectations when I knocked on the apartment door. I had little information upon which to base expectations, and I was a young man of limited imagination. The facts were as follows: she was thirty-something, with red hair and brown eyes; she worked in one of the [...]

DRIVING WITHOUT AIR CONDITIONING THROUGH SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA This is not a true story. As a favor to someone I was driving a car without functioning air conditioning. My route was simple: straight up the 405 which turns into the 5 then the 99; a surgical incision, inviting malpractice lawsuits with its jagged crook through the [...]

SOME KIND OF EDUCATION Her face was not pressed against the window of the car. Her eyes did not travel. She asked a question: I responded: “I can knock things over too.” First the cabinet, wood and glass; second the shower curtain and curtain-rod. She asked a question: I filled my ears with crooks, clinging

Made from vinyl Way loved vinyl. His earliest memory was of vinyl: his hands pawed at a black circle rotating in lazy, even circles; there was also the smell of roast duck; his mother’s skirt and hairstyle emulated Jackie Kennedy instead of Nancy Reagan; his father’s glasses, like an artifact out of the 1950s, rested [...]

LP3: 07 08 2008

hột vịt lộn fight makes right claims the dripping juice from boiled duck embryo still-in-shell so drops, on ornamental plate, congeal. its designs like yours are bold and unafraid brush-tip freckles, but sparse and the metal is from a different age. fist for fight crushing the unborn duck: the broth sinks through gaps in fingers [...]