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by Loisa Fenichell Night lingers like a virus endlessly. There’s no desire here but I’m lying. I lie often, lie awake with you in mind, and the dark flowers resting tirelessly atop my bureau and the little sightings of sadness and the lack of explanations for why I long the way I do. You held me, once, and still I’m unsure if you remember: how you never said, now I’m unable to sleep, but you continued, still, like a lighthouse crying for shore. I wanted first a mother. My body to hold itself unveiled to experiences. To the darkness I raised a small sacrifice: a mug of tea grown cold as the dustings of a cloud. At this point, there’s so much more you could tell me that I don’t already know. I don’t know the fields spangled by moon in the distance. The many songs you sang during your birth. Tonight, though, it’s music, so much more than the damage of language. I do mean I wish I were a musician, on stage and laughing about it. See I can’t help the way I stumble across pastures like a large cow and have nightmares best in solitude. In that dream I dreamt of conclusions— the conclusion of my body standing next to yours in the shower, or driving past mountain ranges in a red Jeep. How each town to which we travelled was stranger than the last, with strange names like the sounds of bird calls in the morning. I fear now saying goodbye to the blankness of dawn. The blankness of a summer day, by the river, when I was by the river, with you. Or in the wispiness of the forest, and in the wind of the bay, and cutting my teeth into the ice to cancel out the bleeding you caused. You were a name. I adored you amidst far too many reddish leaves. Loisa Fenichell’s work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and has been featured or is forthcoming in Guernica Magazine, Narrative Magazine, Poetry Northwest, Washington Square Review, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, “all these urban fields,” was published by nothing to say press and her manuscript, “Wandering in all directions of this earth,” is a Tupelo Press Berkshire Prize 2021 and 2022 finalist. She is the winner of the 2021 Bat City Review Editors' Prize, has been a finalist for Narrative Magazine’s 2021 30 Below contest, a runner-up for Tupelo Quarterly's Tupelo Poetry Prize, and a finalist for the Dorianne Laux / Joe Millar prize. She has been the recipient of an award from Bread Loaf Writers’ Workshop and is currently an MFA candidate at Columbia University, where she holds the Writers’ Scholarship.

The Kleeman Kenyon Review Workshop Crew (2022) reunited for one last job. My Country in Pieces (2004): The artists are known as Mother and Sister. Sister lays out a box of baby dolls’ arms arranged in the shape of the American flag. The audience keeps accidentally stepping on the arms, cutting their feet. The Feminist Mothers League calls it a crime against childhood. The NRA, citing anti-patriotism, stages a boycott of the gallery space. Outside the exhibition doors on the morning of their respective protests, each party stands staring at each other, nodding. Mother and Sister watch, eating hot dogs. Mother eats hers with ketchup. Sister eats hers with mustard. Spa Day (2006): Sister massages a raw chicken breast. Mother stands in the corner, exfoliating herself. Sister disrupts the illusion of tranquility by shouting that she got salmonella from licking the chicken breast. When Sister recovers, Mother and Sister try again. They rewrite their artist statement and update their website. Although they have a joint website, Mother demands Sister code a separate one just for her. Text crawls across Mother’s homepage: As an artist, but also as a spirit in this world, I seek to deconstruct the inherent hegemonic struggle between generations. Sister takes this personally—Mother and Sister are the same age. After Sister has secured Mother’s domain name for a year, Mother instructs her to delete the website. Being together is bigger than being apart. Nuestra America/Our America (September 21, 2007, International Day of Peace): An interactive map of Latin America made out of glass installed above the gallery’s basement. Gallery visitors are encouraged to “Rearrange the borders at will!” Visitors soon realize that the floor is fragile and opt to sit in folding chairs lining the map's perimeter. Mother drops pieces of Latin America on the various folding chairs. These visitors do not pay extra. A musician from Rio dances on the map, cracks it, and falls through.“Caralho,” he says, looking up from the bottom of the museum basement. Someone posts a video of it to YouTube and shares it on MySpace. Six months later, the musician restages it all at the Brazilian embassy and earns a grant from the NEA. Sister spreads the news and tells Mother that their work lacks social commentary. Spaghetti Dinner (2008): Mother cooks spaghetti for Sister. Sister chews with her mouth open. One bite every thirty minutes while Mother chain smokes and surfs TV channels. This is a commentary on gender norms, generation to generation. After a day, Sister is ill from food poisoning. Mother eats the leftovers and never vomits once. Sister accuses her of divinity. Jesus in Air, Jesus in Water (2012): Sister, dressed as Jesus, falls backwards off a diving board again and again. Her arms are spread for crucifixion, her hands and feet bleed. She falls in the same shape but every time the water catches her in a different way. Sister breaks her collarbone after Mother convinces her to dive into the shallow end, and the exhibition closes. CyPork (2014): A meat processing plant, redesigned! Think: organic curves. Think: wonderful natural light. The workers have chosen the theme of the employee lounge and it is Scandinavian Minimalism. The redesign includes Temple Grandin’s cattle handling system. Employees walk single-file to the factory floor. As with the cows, the workers forget where they are going; perhaps going back to where they came from. Home. Employee well-being goes up 5%, but no one wants to visit the meat processing plant. The meat is not meat. The meat is textured soy protein and cardboard. Sister plays one of the workers, shredding her own foot-strips into the batch. It is not part of the script. The mainstream vegans write strongly worded emails claiming their way of life is being unfairly satirized. A Catholic vegan pens an essay about Jesus being vegan. Its subject: The Right Way to Live. Fissorp (2016): Sister and Mother have their big idea. Mother plays a woman sitting on a stool; Sister a young boy. Sister massages Mother’s feet. Audience member plays a teenage boy who sits in the upper right corner of the stage. Teenage boy fiddles with a recorder. Young boy slowly fissorps woman’s toenails, picking at and removing them. Mother yells. She throws them to the audience, which has come for a piece of her foot. When all ten toenails are gone, teenage boy offers his tongue. According to the show’s flyer, Fissorp is a commentary about the state of the world. “We are all perpetually ripping off one another’s toenails,” Mother will tell PBS in an interview years later. Chuck E. Cheezus (2017): An animatronic Jesus offers “free hugs!” and cauliflower pizza. The animatronic is miscalibrated and has a tendency to aim too low. The animatronic is not an animatronic. The animatronic is Sister playing an animatronic. This is not listed in the playbill. Sister does not get credit because Mother reminds her that they are a collective. Pleasure and Leisure (2018): Sister acts as mother to Mother. Sister plays with Mother’s toys in the center of the gallery and yells hee hee hee hoo hoo. She steps on Legos. Participants must draw their family tree. They receive grades by mail. They find that instead of labeling relationships, audience members have marked their trees with examples of familial dysfunction. Mother looks at Sister and yells hee hee hee hoo hoo. They take this as only half a failure. Mother, Mother! (2019): Sister sits at a Dell laptop writing in Courier New and authors a piece about Mother. Mother knifes audience members who break Sister’s flow (i.e. sneeze, whisper, ding, hiss, cricket, chirp-chirp). Fissorp (2016): The Sequel (2020): Mother offers Sister a piece of hair to floss with. Sister breaks it between her teeth. Mother fissorps her pinkie fingernail and offers it to Sister. Sister pries the hair out. Sister enjoys the salty taste. Hee hee hee hoo hoo, they yell at the audience. The audience knows it’s a call and response. Audience members join the chants and fissorp each others’ fingers. Some fissorp toes. Others use teeth. Peace be with you, hee hee hee hoo hoo! The vegans in attendance differ in their beliefs about whether eating one’s own body parts is vegan. The first camp believes it is, because the toenails are given with consent. The more radical vegans accuse the first camp of being soft. The fight turns bloody. Communion (2023): Mother and Sister, sensing the imminent end of their careers after the carnage of Fissorp (2016): The Sequel (2020), seek to recapture the creative energy of the Fissorp era and appease the vegans, while also resurrecting Jesus. Mother and Sister build a statue of Jesus made of vegan meat. Mother tells Sister to consensually harvest toenail clippings. Sister puts out a call and receives donations from some generous benefactors who, while loath to give up their collections, have been fans of the artists since My Country in Pieces (2004). Sister sticks the toenails beautifully onto the toes of the vegan meat Jesus. Thirty-three toenails because Jesus is Divine. On the big day, the line for admission goes around the block. Guests are encouraged to eat the toenail clippings and grab chunks of Jesus’ flesh. This is the Catechism. The exhibition is going well until the radical vegan splinter group stages a protest, claiming that soy protein is violence because it too closely mimics the texture of meat and therefore normalizes meat. A service dog begins to eat Vegan Jesus’ ankle. Several guests vomit from food poisoning as Vegan Jesus lists to the side. A conservative Christian group bursts onto the scene with their own picket signs: “Jesus Loved Steak” and “My Culture is Not Your Meat Puppet.” Mother blames Sister for the badly textured soy protein. Sister blames Mother for not doing enough research on what is considered violent these days. Mother says their career is over, thanks to Sister. Sister slaps Mother. Mother stares at Sister, open-mouthed. When a cry is raised from the crowd, everyone else falls silent. It is the vegan Catholic, in desperation to bring everyone together. But nobody is listening. They stare at Vegan Jesus, who is falling. His chewed ankle has failed. The conservatives and vegans brawling next to Jesus’ right foot stop and watch in horror as the Son of God crashes down upon them, crushing them to death, their flesh undergoing a mass transubstantiation, intermingling with the textured soy protein of Jesus’ body. One final voice is raised from the carnage—a paper-thin “Hallelujah.” Mother and Sister declare Communion (2023) a success. Chloe Alberta (@chloe_alberta) likes frogs and various mustards. Kennedy Coyne (@kenlcoyne) likes toads and various ketchups. Eshani Surya (@__Eshani) believes all food should be served with a condiment, even mac and cheese. Nicole Zhu (@nicolelzhu) puts Tabasco on everything (seriously, everything). Maggie Hohlfeld (@MaggieHohlfeld) has a thing for hands. Daniel Pope (@PanielDope) lives with his mom and is a little too into birds right now. Rosa Boshier Gonzalez (@RosBossGonzalez) is taking over the world, one condiment at a time. Aleksia Silverman (@AleksiaMira) will have a witty and zany brain one day. They all agree: dill relish on a veggie hot dog. There is nothing better.

by Hop Nguyen We were separated at birth. Somehow I’m older now. He lives up to the word Ram alright. I devour his careless body that belonged to a careful mind. His long, flailing limbs with a strength much larger than me. I want to live up his legs. He’d hurt himself ramming himself up inside me, his twisted cock tying a knot up my stomach. Neither I nor him would want to let go. He’d drool on my shoulders and face. All this was done under my desperation and under my command. He’d shine under the look I give him. I’d give him a look like I was proud. And I am. He’d dislike the way I’d talk to him like a child and also loved it. I would have given him my fingers. I would let him bite them off like carrots. It hurts to want you but I wouldn’t trade it for a sharpened knife dripping with blood of a deer. I let him call me a girl. And I would like it like a girl would. When we switch positions we do not talk about it. God forbid. I’d wish the growl in his throat was a person so I could eat it alive. He seems to me a believer. A perfect amount of fire and water. He might be the only one to shut down my ridiculous idealism. Learn how to dream without drowning in it. Thick-skinned on the outside though his words for me are gentle like a new calf. Still blood on his fur. I lap at his mouth when I feel a thirst. Salty—for he rises under the pull of the moon. I’d like to think I am stern with him but not at all. Cooing like a wet bird. He’d scoff at talking to him like a baby only to fall asleep in my arms. Rather die than to ever hurt you. Never could be a threat. Hop Nguyen (he/she), trans. Quarter-time busboy, quarter-time superstar, part time poet. Find Hop on Instagram @hoppingt0n.

by tracy danes the interior shadow extrudes itself / the interior shadow turns itself inside out / the interior shadow dom- inates the containing body / the interior shadow harbors no ill will / the process is an affirmation the membrane tightens a network of pliable knives and forked lexicon when they—unfortunate protrusion of their shadow—move between rooms unbeckoned unfilamented they are not one with their body they are not one with their mind as an entity whose meaning is continually obliterated they stand in the envelope / filter out undesirable frequencies unclench jaw let slip the memory : gilded contour of the infinite stretch of unmoments the membrane tightens knives flex neath dermis abdicating nothing tracy danes is a writer and/or spreadsheet whose interests lie along the faults of words like "abstract, speculative, queer, playful existentialism," and whose thoughts are always dissolving. Find them dreaming of a genderless utopia.

by Ray Miller Everything around me is soft. It is dark, and there is no more weeping. I try to look around, but I am immobile; my muscles barely respond. This is hardly surprising, given the circumstances. I trudge through the mud of my most recent memories: the motorized bed, the nurse and her endless paper cups of pills, my daughter’s forlorn face. The fading light, my fuzzing vision, my veins losing their vigor. And now I am here. Is this the close? Where are the towering gates, where is the carpet of clouds? Terror begins to set in, and the only familiar thing is the fear of unfamiliarity. It is just so dark—no walls, no beginnings, no ends. Somewhere, there is the sound of a door opening. In vain I strain forwards, trying to catch a glimpse of something, anything. And then there is a voice, gentle and beckoning—is it you, Mother, where are you, have you been waiting for me all this time, I can’t see you, I can’t see anything thing at all— Hit by a wave of exhaustion, I collapse back into the warmth. *** I am not alone. I have found myself in a tangle of bodies, chest on top of spine on top of neck. Our contours enmesh and intertwine. I cannot explain it, but I feel safer, though I never would have wanted to be this close to so many others just a short while ago. When was that? How long ago? It is still dark and now I wriggle with these somehow familiar bodies, like I am woven into Rodin’s Gates of Hell; is that where I am? It cannot be. I wasn’t perfect but I was decent. Besides, Hell is meant to burn; this warmth is solace. I suppose this place does not need a name, not for now. For now I must sleep. I am so very tired. *** The need for nourishment—a limb reaches out from somewhere and draws me close. Is this love? *** I cannot remember my daughter’s face. I know her individual features, but cannot put them together: her round brown eyes, her slightly curved nose, her mouth. What did her mouth look like? I focus on the thought so hard I grow dizzy, yet I can do nothing but fail. I hear her glasslike laugh from the back of my Chevy, tucked in her car seat as I drive her to school. I see the ends of her hair catching the light as she twirls in our living room, wearing a princess costume, dancing to a movie soundtrack. But when I try to look at her face it hides from me, ducking beyond the corners of my sight. I cry out, my voice unrecognizable. The bodies beside me cry out as well, but I cannot understand them. Someone please hear me, tell me what her mouth looked like, I want to see her, I want to remember— *** It must be morning. Light is creeping its way through the cracks over my eyes, forcing its way in until it is so bright I am certain I will go blind, until I remember I already am. And then, just as suddenly, I am not. It feels like an age has passed since I saw. That must be why I’m not very good at it. The forms around me are indistinct, so blurred that nothing seems to have edges. It is as if I’m in the midst of a watercolor painting, too near the other shapes to make anything of them. I try to ask the bodies around me if they can see now, too. I can feel them writhing beside me, crying out, same as I, but their words are not words, or if they are I can’t understand them. I make another attempt to move, a regular exploit of mine. I’m slowly improving, but my limbs are uncoordinated. My body is not the same as it used to be, arms and legs and an upright torso. My steps are trembling. It takes so much energy to move. I am so weak. I am so hungry. A palm lifts me off of the ground. I am so small within it. I have given up the notion that it is God. I nuzzle into the space between the thumb and forefinger. Skin feels so different from my familiar bodies. It feels naked. *** I can now see that I am surrounded by blankets. Flannels bearing cartoon dinosaurs, overlapping zigzags, poorly drawn trees. I can stand now, for what feels like a full minute, but I always lose track of numbers when I attempt to count. I’m driven to walk around, to discover—perhaps I am regaining something I lost long ago, back in my youth, when everything in the world was new and exciting. The other day I found the corner of a blanket and was fascinated to find an end to something. Then I felt rather foolish. But the next day I was quite excited again, and spent some time at the corner with one of my familiar bodies. I think we were playing. It was joy. *** A sweet scent wafts in from beyond the doorway. Chocolate? I cry out, begging for one more taste. My siblings are shifting beside me; two of them are mewing, too. I don’t know what they’re asking for. Not-God reaches out for me; my legs buckle and I fall. *** I have been given a small object with a bell inside that jingles whenever I touch it. The object is strangely familiar. I’ve spent the morning chasing it, but I can never really catch it. When I notice my limbs before me I think I can tell what they are. But it feels unimportant. My mother calls; she will protect me. *** I am being spoken to. The sounds—maybe words, maybe something I can no longer reach—seem far away, as if coming from a distant world. Ray Miller (she/her) is a writer, semi-competitive Pokémon player, and pasta enthusiast from California. She believes in the power of fairy tales and Garamond. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Fiction at Columbia University and is a first reader at Reservoir Road Literary Review.

after Lyn Hejinian by Ariel So Whether a memory or made-up scene, I envision the outdoor steps I tripped over, the way oral history tripped me over its cracks. Much of childhood is spent in a manner of waiting. My sister asked me to attempt her name when I was old enough to speak. Seven too many letters. Instead, I muttered the first letter twice, T-T: a nickname that stuck. Years later, a mute man would come by our apartment and ring the doorbell to sell his art. Though I was afraid to greet strangers, Dad bought his painting, hung it on our wall: a Chinese goddess wearing pure silk-white to cover herself. When the bloom unfolded—again some years later—scenarios did too, as relics: Pink teenage hoodie, empty bathroom stall. The autumn breeze, the hallway, the backdoor staircase. Dirtied by hands at the Recreational Arts Center. Someone to adore me. Unzipped. Get home. Dorm. Though moments are no longer so colored. The sky split into three braids, and I forget now which year is what. Ariel Joy So is a Chinese poet—born and raised in Hong Kong—who has spent significant time living in Singapore and the United States. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Tupelo Quarterly, Bee Infinite Publishing, Protest Through Poetry, Sprague Gallery, and elsewhere. She graduated from Scripps College with a BA in English and Creative Writing Emphasis. Currently, she is an MFA Candidate in Poetry at Columbia University.

by Evan Grillon I dreamed my mother took me sailing. She never took me sailing. My grasp of boat terminology was tenuous at best. In the dream I read the manual, looking for a section that tells you how you got into this boat in the first place, while mother just sat on the deck in a long white dress. Her lips were pursed and her legs were crossed and her hair was up in a wispy bun that was perfectly white as well. She had a glass of red like she’d had on that night. The sea tossed our boat and spilled wine on her dress; then too I had run to get a napkin and some seltzer water, as I did in my dream to that cooler on the deck. Gulls were snatching fish from the water like miracles and I went to dab at the spots, but she insisted: she’d do it herself. I begged that we needed to figure this out before the wind died down, but at the table I had poured her another, having promised myself that I wouldn’t ever pour her another. Then a dolphin at play somersaulted right over our little boat. Holding her up, having read of grace, I had said “That was close, mom, wasn’t it?” On the white carpet with red wine everywhere; on the shore with the tide coming in and creeping up her dress, she said “Your father would’ve been able to fly that boat,” and I said “Planes. He flew planes.” Evan Grillon is a writer who lives in Florida. His fiction has appeared in Wigleaf, Salamander, and Triangle House Review, among others.

by Swati Sudarsan I lived long deprived, a long silence, drenched in abstemious want. I wanted nothing, knowing longing was only useful in smoking out rats. I lived as a woman, which is the same as a ghost. I survived violations unseen, determined to find an approximation of desire, haloed desire, knowing nothing of its true nature. I had never desired anything but safety. Distance from events that soiled my soul. I wandered past the sky to the sea and reached it weeping streams of tears, blossoms and bouquets, buds with scarlet-dappled thorns that betrayed my whereabouts and They came together, Time and Weary. They taught me hunger, so I hungered, eating after prayers clasping pinkies, to hack paths to ribbons, trampling prints not mine as They checked empty maps and filled them with lines leading to an end. But until then we would eat wingless birds full of songs, sucked from their skulls so our pockets sang whenever we desired. As we edged toward the end I found my morals lighter, hollower day by day. Found my hair looser, undressed more easily, teeth falling out in clumps, my gums bleeding, dropping petals of canines like a procession. One day I saw a sight that sent my desire thumping: Moonglow dancing upon a stone not too solid, its light scattering, a type of infinite, which is a type of ending. Time and Weary held me back as they violented the stone. I played bird songs to drown them out. When They came back to me kissing knuckles, washing off blood, I stood armed with desire, stone cold desire, and stepped up to finish Their job until a vein of blue glimmer in the stone caught my throat, sent it beating like a little bird heart—so fast that at first glance it looks still. In this stillness, I found I did not desire an ending but altogether a different journey Swati Sudarsan is based in Oakland, CA (Ohlone Land). Swati has received support from Tin House, Kenyon Review, Kweli Journal, and Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. She was the runner-up of the 2022 So to Speak Contest Issue, and has work in McSweeney's, The Adroit Journal, Maudlin House and more.

by Kasey Furutani Episode Ten At ten in the morning, Hannah gussied herself in a yellow dress she thought made her bottom look especially nice. I’m just grateful to have an ass, she thought. Real lips and real skin and real bones and a real butt. Now, she finds herself gasping against jagged rocks as she fights the current that threatens to take her away. A stone thrown from above smacks her right cheekbone and claps the water behind her. She hears boos. She hears you suck! She hears you signed a contract! “I’m real,” Hannah yells above the waves. “Who in their right mind would make a robot Housewife like me?” “FAKE, FAKE, FAKE,” the remaining Housewives chant above. Of course, Kitty’s voice is the loudest. Hannah turns to the cameraman, her shadow for the past nine weeks, who joins her in the water in a diving suit. He shoves a waterproof camera in her face. She groans. The camera zooms in. Her strength weakens. The audience leans forward. Episode Eight Hannah notices Kitty side-eying her all day. At breakfast- side eye. In the makeup department- side eye. Even on the toilet, Hannah feels Kitty’s side-eye from the neighboring stall. Kitty is the only Housewife Hannah thinks might be human, so it is weird to see a body part glitch. In previous seasons, the robo-Housewives tried to act as real as possible to avoid elimination, but this season’s strategy might have changed. Hannah still believes Kitty has a regulated body temperature of 98.6 degrees and a heart that pumps blood. She is probably made of bones, not steel. She might be at least seventy percent silicone, but she has a brain at least. Maybe. Today’s elimination was Cupcake. The audience agreed that she tries too hard, and nobody likes a try-hard, human or not. Upon announcement, Cupcake cries real tears and her face turns into a purple blotch. The remaining Housewives stand in a row and watch the spotlight shine on Cupcake as she is dragged to the incinerator. Hannah turns to see the dead expressions in the Housewives’ marble eyeballs and catches Kitty’s side-eye. Her face tilts one degree to the left and flashes Hannah a perfected smile, sculpted by an orthodontist or a factory. Episode Six Breakfast is a feast. Hannah had not seen fruit this vibrant since she was in school. Apples of all shades, cored and sliced. A mango, nuclear orange and cubed. Actual bananas, the length of her forearm. Fluffy, Pretty, Kitty and Bunny sit with their legs crossed, a napkin on each of their laps. Hannah finishes her plate and grabs more. The Housewives only move when their mimosas are served. “It’s Girl Talk Time,” Pretty announces. “Tell me all about him,” Kitty says. “My job is demanding, but all I really want to be is a mother,” Fluffy says. It is so obvious Fluffy is fake and Hannah can’t believe it took this long for the audience to vote her as a fraud. Her dialogue is directly stolen from Sex and the City. Also, in direct sunlight, her poorly tanned skin is known to peel off and expose a cloudy, plastic imitation of a cheekbone. Episode Four Nana and Pinky are removed from the competition after making out in a bathroom stall, caught in a viral video. Of course, no action was taken against the videographer, but it did not matter because the audience did not care. What they did care about was the reveal that Nana and Pinky are human, which gave the other Housewives an unfair advantage, because the fakes are not programed to feel sexual attraction. Hannah, snuggled in her pastel, prison-style bunk deemed The Dreamhouse, snuck articles about the Nana and Pinky fiasco on her counterfeit smartphone. Lesbian Housewife….Robot?? Sex — Here’s How to See the Newest Porn Trend Nana and Pinky in LOVE?????? Click More to Find Out!!!!! Robots or Humans — Who Loves More? After Nana and Pinky walk off the soundstage, hand in hand, Puppy’s red lips fall off. Taking advantage of this bit, the producers re-film the live studio audience gasping, then throw Puppy into the incinerator. Episode Three Shopping Spree! The Housewives are given credit cards to spend as much money as they would like. In their stilettos, the Housewives run to their desktops and begin clicking. Hannah, slouched over her sticky keyboard, peruses the Internet and wonders if she needs to restock toilet paper. She turns around and sees the others mechanically pressing buttons to purchase handbags, perfume, cars by the hundred. Today’s elimination is Prairie Dog because she did not pass the Captcha test. Episode Two This is the first elimination episode. To win the audience’s favor, each Housewife tells the story of how they met their husbands. “My husband charmed me at a charity gala,” Kitty says. “He’s an animal rights lawyer.” Hannah knew that Kitty’s husband is a lawyer, but he fought for companies that used animal testing. She read about it in the tabloids, on the subway ride to the sound set. This could be an imitation Kitty, Hannah thinks. This happened on Season 27, when a robot version of a child star’s mother won the competition. “My husband is a three-time champion in luge,” Puppy says. “We met at an exclusive ski resort in Switzerland.” “My husband works in Big Internet.” “My husband is a skin surgeon.” “Hannah?” The producer says. Hannah drags herself onto the stage, self-conscious of her tummy rolls next to the Housewives’ literal chiseled bodies. “Well, it’s kind of funny,” Hannah says. “When I first married my husband he wasn’t rich at all. We were squatting in his aunt’s friend’s cousin’s apartment in Berkeley.” The eleven Housewives stare in unison, eyeballs rolling in their sockets. “And, um, well my husband had an idea for an app. We borrowed some money and he pulled some stuff together…” The producer gives Hannah the let’s wrap it up signal. “Yeah so my husband is in tech I guess? He sold the app and it was successful?” Hannah grunted against her will. “You can say we have enough money to pay off our student loans, and buy a house in the Bay and still have some to spare.” The Housewives clap mechanically. No one blinks. The first elimination is Steffy. After Kitty spills water on her, Steffy glitches and steam flies out of her ears, like a locomotive. Episode One Hannah only starts to feel safe when she sees cameras everywhere. There are eleven other Housewives, most of them blonde, tall and enhanced. Hannah pulls at her thick, brown hair and wonders again why she agreed to this opportunity. There is nothing to do. Earlier, the producers took everyone’s phones and sealed them properly in a fail safe locked bag, then threw them in the ocean. As promised, her wardrobe is curated and already in her closet. Her outfit for the introductory episode, a vermillion jumpsuit with spaghetti straps and wide legs, highlights her warm skin tone. When Hannah asks how the wardrobe department already knows her size, the assistant half shrugs, then runs to pick up batteries scattered on the floor. Housewife number one, a fluffy haired bottle blonde, is called to stage. She says, “I’m Kitty and I’m a REAL housewife.” They go up one by one. “I’m Bunny and I’m a REAL housewife.” “I’m Cupcake and I’m a REAL housewife.” Just as Hannah thinks they would run out of twee names, number eleven, Prairie Dog, exits the stage. The producer beckons Hannah to get on stage stat. “I’m Hannah,” Hannah says, opening her arms and exposing her green veins and unshaved armpits. “And I’m a REAL housewife.” Kasey Furutani's writing has appeared in McSweeney's Internet Tendency and is forthcoming in Ligeia Magazine. She also attended the 2022 Kenyon Writers Workshop. A former staff writer for Time Out Tokyo, Kasey now lives in Los Angeles.

by Kira K. Homsher His eyes are black as buttons, his nose A wet beating heart. Handsome waggy boy, nostalgic for nothing Curled like a croissant beneath my feet. If the sheets ever lost his scent, it would be the end Of comfort. I would tear up the lease Set fire to the furniture And twist through the unfragrant world Like a storm with no eye. Kira K. Homsher is a writer from Philadelphia, currently living in Los Angeles. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in Kenyon Review Online, Indiana Review, Passages North, DIAGRAM, and others. You can find her at kirahomsher.com and tweeting @bogcritter.

by Claire Donato Woebegone I spent the morning browsing mattresses so I didn’t write you this nor did I order one. So too did you not order one because you don’t know of mattresses although you sleep on top of one (and sometimes under one— and under the bed frame the mattress rests on where I can’t find you.) Woebegone, where are you? Come out and rest upon my lap as I navigate the specifics of memory foam, pressure relief and the volatile organic compounds that get two stars of five for sex. Couples don’t have to worry about a squeaky mattress when it contours minimally. Models that contain memory foam often hold the impression of an HBO marathon. When you came out this evening and stood in the sink, I observed you sobbed, then refilled my waterbed. Poet and multidisciplinary artist Claire Donato’s chapbook Woebegone is forthcoming in 2023 from Theaphora Editions. She is also the author of Burial, a novella, and The Second Body, a collection of poems, and is at work on two new books. Currently, she is the Assistant Chairperson of Writing at Pratt Institute, where she received the 2020-21 Distinguished Teacher Award. Claire lives in Brooklyn with her cat, Woebegone. Find more of her at somanytumbleweeds.com.

by Robert Lopez I was sitting in a parked car outside my apartment and reading a book. A realtor was inside the apartment and showing it to prospective buyers which is why I was sitting in the car and reading a book and not inside the apartment doing something else. The apartment belonged to my girlfriend, who owned it. I moved in with her after I couldn’t stand it any longer in the apartment I’d lived in by myself for fifteen years. It was too loud was the reason. It was too loud from the downstairs neighbor and his dance music and the kids across the street in the playground and the cars picking up the children after they were done playing in the playground. The kids in the playground were the worst people you ever saw, if you can even call them people. They screamed and yelled and were out to kill each other every morning and afternoon. I had thoughts of doing something unspeakable from my living room window, which was on the third floor and overlooked the playground, something that involved a telescopic lens and a tripod and making worldwide headlines and I know it’s awful but I’m human like everyone else and sometimes I need quiet like how quiet it was in the car outside my apartment when I was reading that book. Inside the apartment the realtor was showing it to prospective buyers and I wanted one of them to go ahead and buy the apartment so this way we could move somewhere else. I didn’t like living there because it was too dark and the neighborhood was full of rich, white people who were all cold and awful and unfriendly and I’m not sure you can even call them people. I had the same unspeakable thoughts about these people that I had about the children in the playground but the only difference was I had no vantage point and thus could never employ a telescopic lens and a tripod and make worldwide headlines because the apartment was on the ground floor and looked out over nothing. My girlfriend didn’t like these people either and she didn’t like the apartment for how dark it was but I doubt she ever thought about a tripod and headlines because she’s not that sort of person. She wants a dog and talks about wanting a dog all the time so you know she doesn’t think the way I do. This is what I was thinking about when I was sitting in the parked car outside my apartment and reading that book. I thought the book concerned the aging process and how one might enjoy it, but it didn’t actually have anything to do with the aging process, let alone how one might enjoy such a thing. Instead, it talked about the things of the world, gardens and vegetables, friends and relatives, children and dogs, love and betrayal, because what else is there. Robert Lopez is the author of three novels, Part of the World, Kamby Bolongo Mean River —named one of 25 important books of the decade by HTML Giant, All Back Full, and two story collections, Asunder and Good People. A new novel-in-stories, A Better Class Of People, will be published by Dzanc Books in April, 2022. Dispatches from Puerto Nowhere, his first nonfiction book, will be published by Two Dollar Radio in March, 2023. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry has appeared in dozens of publications, including Bomb, The Threepenny Review, Vice Magazine, New England Review, The Sun, and the Norton Anthology of Sudden Fiction – Latino. He teaches at Stony Brook University and has previously taught at Columbia University, The New School, Pratt Institute, and Syracuse University. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.