Aunt City

(from Sawako Nakayasu)

In a city full of aunts, straw hats and sugar cubes are only sold in bulk. Auntie is displeased with the selection, and Auntie has never felt lust, and Auntie fans her gout in the shade. Auntie hopes her lover will soon arrive, and Auntie collects coupons, and Auntie asks Auntie for instructions on how to break open her hymen. Auntie’s aunt is dreaming: her involuntary wrinkles hummingbird. When the iced tea is sufficiently sweet, together, we unfold the landscape to picnic and peck.

The Red Shoes

(from Amy Sara Carroll)

He cut off her feet but left the shoes on—so they could keep on two-stepping, so that he could keep on watching. He winked and said, “Clean this up.” He was not a malicious man. Quite the opposite, she’d categorize him as kind. He said, “Then, walk on. You asked for this, remember that.” She took off her shirt and ripped it half and fashioned herself a pair of bandage shoes—also red. She saturated a sponge with her blood and rang it out over a bucket. She did this many times, but she looked up only once to watch her feet tango against the horizon. She let out a hearty laugh, almost a delighted snort, and kept on scrubbing.

Bare Life

(from Melissa Febos)

My father the King named me Zoë, and many years later, princes and senators arrived with bouquets of translucent jewels for me. Their attention quickened me, turned me into something lithe and bright. I would have married any of these men, each one respectable, circumspect, almost equine, and a king never feels inadequate. He examined each suitor, stabbing a finger at their imperfections, and then a heavenly flash, divine, the arduous glint off my suddenly lifeless pursuers so intimate that I was quite sure I had been rendered blind. The King insisted that we keep my old suitors on display in the main hall. Oh, my golden husbands, such darlings! It is my covenant to shine and buff them at dawn and at dusk, rites to prove my daily gratitude for my father’s love.