Category: January-February 2022

Machines Against the Rage by Mark O. Hodgson

We should have been more suspicious once we discovered that the door lock on the little Cessna 152 was frozen.

It is 1986 and I have lived in rural Nepal for a year, without electricity, running water, or a phone.

I don’t know why I put on lipstick. He can’t see my smile through the mask I wear.

“We’re moving again.” I don’t look at Emily when I say this. It’s too hot to turn my head.

The first time I had a word for what happened to me, I was squatting over a toilet, trying not to touch the seat.

We were caught in the storm, crossing Aziscohos Lake in your beat-up aluminum canoe

He was our vampire, though we didn’t know his name.

At 7:13 a.m., crack two eggs into a bowl. Their shells shatter silently…

My father was on hospice for a short time, just a couple of days.

I’m hopeful that my son’s tiny fingers, so plump and soft, will one day grow to be strong and sturdy.

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