“A Village” by Ken Poyner
“Good news greets Quibble’s return: his wife has conceived.”
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Tag: family
“Powerless” by Storm Lomax
“My little brother had shown early signs, spitting up fire with his baby food. My parents were
covered in small burns for the first few years but I’d never seen them so happy.”
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“For Thea” by Linda Lacy
Nate turns me toward him, my round belly the bumper between us, his brown eyes plead with me. “Everyone has evacuated. We have to go now. Please.”
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“Deer Hunt” by Sylvia Cumming
I’ve put the sign on the door for a reason: “Day sleeper, don’t ring or knock,” but the doorbell rings anyway, just when I’m dozing …
“Emma Marries for the First Time at 54” by John Grey
It’s part dream, part afterthought. All those years, Cupid’s arrows landed wide of the mark, struck her friends instead. And now, at last, one thumps …
“Gearshift” by Patrick R. Wilson
The car, an older gas-powered Lincoln, rolled up smoothly, making no splash in the curbside puddle. Driver’s face (human, of course, the Others could operate …
Microfiction by Doug Jacquier
DetourmentiaIt began with her putting the kettle in the fridge and calling everybody ‘darling’ because shecouldn’t remember their names. Then she copied the young women’s …
“Older Brother” by Robin Wyatt Dunn
“Older brother?” “Not now, I’m busy.” The papers shuffled make a noise like a river on a bank. “Older brother?” “What is it?” “Nothing.” Outside …
“Unsettled Cemetery Dust” by Em Dietrich
In a house, in a heart, a demon lurked. The girl found it in her dead brother’s skull buried in the backyard. She looked into …
“Blowing Out Candles” by Daniel Romo
For Devan Daniel Romo is the author of Bum Knees and Grieving Sunsets (FlowerSong Press 2023), Moonlighting as an Avalanche (Tebot Bach 2021), Apologies in …
“The Last Nights of Sisterhood” by E.B. Cotenord
On my sister’s 21st birthday, I visited her at the Cook County Jail. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t been so annoyed to see her …
“Heavy Boots on a Sunday Morning” by Lea Murray
The Mother sifts through the soil, searching. Using her fingers like a sieve, she tries to find the thin filament sprouts in the mulch and …
“Dorset” by J.R. Barner
The most beautiful woman my father had ever seen, Except, he kept insisting, my mother, of course, Hailed from Grimstone, Stratton parish, in Dorset. So, …
“Out of Body” by Liza Olson
I am lying flat on the ground in a quiet living room in a quiet home in the kind of quiet suburb everyone’s at least …
Three Microfictions by Ashley McCurry
My Friends and I Started Having Premonitions About Future Lovers Sonia dreamt of being sawed in half by a mustached magician, rugged steel grinding rosewood …
“For Them” by Paul Attmere
Since our son was born, you always pull out and cum on your side. I roll onto your side of the bed, still warm and …
“The Day in Yellow” by Shelley Davenport
Afternoon. Deep afternoon. Long afternoon. Too deep. Too long. Sylvie in her quilted bed. Try to sleep. Go to sleep. Quickly now! Go to sleep. …
“For Scale” by Daune O’Brien
My mother sayslife is goodshe is happydown sixmaybe seven —- no, eight poundssince catching upto her too-thin sisterwho is losing weight to chemofastand I want …
“Susan” by Holly Day
I stood and watched you sleeping, hadstood there watching for nearly five minutes inthe shadow of the hallway for nearly five minutes of circustime before I …
“Fireworks” by T.K. Howell
Vincent closed his laptop and stared at the wall. The afterglow of an Excel spreadsheet burned across his retina. He waited for it to fade …
“Mothering” by Jazmine Aluma
It’s the way I pause when I come across Goethe andwhisper the name—Gir-tah.To make sure I still remember how it’s supposed to sound on the tongue. To remind myself it …
“Alligators to Ashes” by Margaret S Mandell
Prologue to a Memoir Based on Love Letters to my Dead Husband By Margaret S. Mandell Sunday, December 10, 2017 My Dearest Love: October 2015. …
“What Lay Beneath” by Christine Yount Jones
In the sweltering summer of 1966, I have a kitten who will not cooperate under the Arizona sun that glares at me from its cloudless …
“Dog Joy” by Judy Guilliams-Tapia
I am sitting on my meditation cushion, cross-legged and with eyes closed, warmed by the afternoon sun shining through the glass patio door in front …
“Getting Somewhere” by Cameron Morse
The more times I go back for more and find it there like a bowl of dogfood left out on the back deck by an …
“Indistinguishable” by Kenton K. Yee
When I was in eighth grade, Dad started feeling “neither here nor there.” The harder he tried to relax, the more violently he’d jitter. The …
“Eyelash Extensions” by Clive Aaron Gill
Brittani, the unmarried maid of honor at her younger sister’s wedding in a small village church, spent years in graduate school. It infuriated her that …
“The Art of Remembering Your History” by Christian Ward
I do the same ritual every morning while the clouds wrap their blankets around the sunlight: Practice Italian and Spanish. Trace my fingers along paths of cheekbones inheritedfrom …
“Suburban Complaint #1988—Skunked” by Peter Dabbene
It was late at night, and the dog was barking—that is, until she suddenly voiced a squeal that made it sound like she’d been stabbed …
“Abracadabra” by Christina Marable
The man I loved as my grandfather was a tall, strong, broad-shouldered man who carried a fake ear in his back pocket. With his indigo …
Microfiction by Megha Nayar
Grievances David calls as I’m retiring for the night. “You really need to stop spoiling that dog, Mom!” he begins without preamble when I pick …
“In Between” by Kelly Claytor
Are you dead, Maria? One Hour It seems so. Seven Days Their black clothes. Their black veils. Their white handkerchiefs, dry in their pockets. None …
“Lookalike” by Cameron Morse
It’s funny how franticallya few leaves appear tobe waving at me when I liftmy eyes to the maplethat tried to kill me yesterdaydropping a hefty …
“The Living Room Express” by Jared Cappel
You tell me I’m a bird. Calloused hands pinch into my ribs and lift me overhead. In your eyes, I’m soaring through the clouds like …
“Running on Empty” by Melissent Zumwalt
June 1999 Bzz…Bzz…Bzz… My alarm sounds off, 2:00 a.m. A rude but expected awakening. Rolling onto my side, out of bed, I slump upright. From …
“To an Armoire” by Goddfrey Sue Hammit
The armoire tips from out the truckbed withThe same uncertain, blind leap of a fishFlopping from a boat sole, hoping only to landSomewhere wet, to …
“Fanfare” by DS Maolalai
I piss. it feels okand then after I walkthrough the house going backto the kitchen.and you are not herein any of the house,or at least …
“A Vacation” by Matthew Brinkley
While his children bickered and his wife ignored him, Charlie tugged at the thin paper flap of a packet of tea. His eyes scanned the …
“Picnic” by Matt Dennison
Jane floats her tablecloth across the floor,sets out fruit, bread, wine, says: Here, look closely. See the red so forcefullywoven into the curtain? Mother’s blood. Scattered like …
“Departure” by Richard Helmling
On the first day, the sky went out. Davis had trouble remembering what they’d been doing when the noise started. Whatever it had been, they …
“Water Towers” by John L. Stanizzi
You’ve seen water towers, right? Those huge, tall jugs of water along the roadside. They’re usually a mess—washed out paint and rust, covered by graffiti, …
“African Stamps” by Brecht De Poortere
In my first memory as a child, I sit naked in a garden somewhere in the Congo watching ants scutter in line. They lug the …
“Waiting” by Christine Webster-Hansen
Eyes linger, unchanged photos thickened with dust,body-locked, estranged face gazing at the mirror,clutching at the mind, recalling memories dimly-flung,cycling again through sitcom and rerun.Bras holding …
“Waking Up in California” by Jennifer Novotney
My mother is already uplong retired from work, she putters aroundher house all day, buying things and giving them awaycalling friends, taking short walkskeeping herself …
“A Future Leviathan’s Prodigious Sister” by Mina Rozario
They called me incandescent. Queens and counts, dukes and earls alike sat enthralled when I performed, swept up in a sea of notes that would …
“The Shape of the Laugh in Your Throat” by Edie Meade
From downstairs I hear you playfully yell “panties!” with the tantrum-bound toddler who is disemboweling my underwear drawer. By the shape of the laugh in …
“An Account of Our Precipice” by Jason McGlone
We three stare at each otherit’s Reservoir Dogs: BurgeoningDomestic Dispute Edition Our mouths trained guns,words chambered, Hello translates directly to Say something stupid, BrianAnother Hello …
“Tchotchkes” by Don Noel
“Who’s Rick?” Alicia holds up a fist-sized pewter whale breaching gracefully from a block of varnished wood. Jerry looks up from where he is awkwardly …
“Unleashed” by Catherine Zickgraf
I clutch Dad’s oak tree leg. He reads the congregation my pre-baptism testimony. Seems myheart rejects sin, especially finger-painting my bedroom during Sunday naptime. But …
“Transformations” by David Henson
Mom’s breathing was shallow, her skin rough, hair green. I glanced up and saw my father, Fred, checking his phone as his wife of almost …
“A Bride” by Michael Howard
It was official: Angie Lash and Marco Di Luca, twenty-one years her senior, were wed.
“As We Know It” by Marco Etheridge
You pause in the center of the footbridge, a silver-bright ribbon running beneath you, gravel paths serpentine under the locust trees that define the banks …
“Grace” by Jeff Burt
I freeze, startled by the sudden flight of a mud swallow against the backdrop of a tilt-up building, swarm of chirping notes I cannot decipher, …
“Stripped” by James la Vigne
Having little to his name when he died, the reading of Henry Fromm’s will went quickly. Nothing surprising or contentious. On paper he never did …
“Forgotten Man” by Ann Christine Tabaka
Dust motes dance on sunlight streaming through a dingy window. Rusty mailbox, empty, always empty. Cadaverous cobwebs mocking back at him from a peeling wall. …
“Tungsten Bulbs” by Sayan Aich Bhowmik
I have always wondered About the mood, Inside houses that dress themselves In yellow tungsten bulbs, Once evening descends Like children running down the stairs. …
“Ice Cream or Moxie” by Kristy Gherlone
In the heat of the summer, back when Willow’s mother slipped in and out of lunacy, sometimes she’d wake up at night to find her …
“Skin” by Chestina Craig
SKIN is the bodies first line of defense. our metal shell wrap-around sometimes, your body can confuse fortress for prison, my mother is able to …
“Hatching” by Lena Silver
I was born an old soul they say, a quiet spectator mulling over muddled thoughts, about what I don’t know, perhaps a previous lifetime. I …
“This is What We Do Now” by Becky Shirley
You come home, half gallon of milk in one hand, the other snaking around my waist. Head buried in my shoulder, no words, just small …
“Attic Kitty” by Anna Keeler
Someone would love to have you for a daughter; Wouldn’t mind you in the attic, stealing their things. The walls would be yours, as …
“Rocks” by Elena L. Perez
Obsidian, black, but when held up to light it is semi-transparent. Also known as Apache Tears. Roughly circular in shape, about half an inch by …
“How We Love” by Lauren Brodowski
Sometimes I like to reimagine religion and the stories I was told as a child, so that it fits the way I understand the world …
“Verb Tenses” by Meli Ewing
The letter I wrote Lilly first thing after I found out talks to her in the present tense, like she still exists, because she does …
“Stretch” by Sandra White
I hold the moon like a baby in my arms. If I let it go, it will fall. The light of the night will die. …
“Hypertension” by Maya Castleman
Hypertension: Each bus line a grime-filled artery, Each soup line snaking concrete corners, slithering in human filth like wet soil, wet and thick …
“Traffic Kids” by Farah Billa
I don’t think in Bengali, I think it is just one of those things that fold my body the way my grandfather used to. At …
“Six Wheat Stories” by Emily Ruth Taylor
1 My grandfather lived next to two wheat farmers. I secretly wished my grandfather was a wheat farmer. I would bicycle along the edge of …
“Blood Orange Soda” by Maya Rahman-Rios
Wait until your mother and brother have left the house. Then, call him. Four oh eight, five five five, seven three eight oh. You’ve had …
“A Passage” by Irsa Ruçi
This one’s a very special post. We’re presenting to you the work of the highly accomplished Albanian Poet Irsa Ruçi, both translated, and in its …
“Confessionals” by Chestina Craig
I’m always finding myself writing about fire Maybe because I always got so much to burn maybe cause I’m a fire sign it’s easy because …
“This is not a Political Poem” by Addison Namnoum
Addison Namnoum and The Metaworker Editorial Staff would like to dedicate this poem to the victims of the Orlando shooting, and to their friends, families, …