There’s the man who hisses nasties as he stands under the light outside a bodega with bars over its windows. I put on my don’t-fuck-with-me face, and he has yet to do more than hiss, but there is a part of me that is more than ready, that wants to use what’s building up.

“Ghosts and Empties” by Lauren Groff (2015)

There’s the man who hisses nasties as he stands under the light outside a bodega with bars over its windows. I put on my don’t-fuck-with-me face, and he has yet to do more than hiss, but there is a part of me that is more than ready, that wants to use what’s building up.

“Ghosts and Empties” by Lauren Groff (2015)

From the many-roomed black temple, he had stepped into a universe of fractured patterns. There was no relief from their implacable mathematics. Designs formed and re-formed. Hard-edged triangles joined and split in an endless geometry. If this was death, it was visually exhausting.

“The Flower” by Louise Erdrich (2015)