Narrative Magazine

3 weeks ago | narrativemagazine.com | Tom Jenks

A Story Share Facebook Threads Reddit Forward Print Copy link The worst thing. Such a terrible thing to happen to a young woman. It’s a wonder she didn’t go mad. As she went about her errands, a cheerful, neat young woman, a wife, wearing pants with permanent creases and safari jackets and high-necked sweaters that folded chastely just below the line of the small gold hoops she wore in her ears, she imagined people saying this, or thinking it to themselves. But nobody knew.

1 month ago | narrativemagazine.com | Mimi Kusch

Neighbors, evicted, spin the bald tires of a pickup in the yard-mud, iffy load lidded with a futon. Then they’re gone, the lawn a not-lawn now and a box like a tiny hotel safe hangs from the doorknob. No one recalls being born or seems to long for what it was before memory finally gained purchase on the slick surface of a lot leased us by an agency too distant to drop a check, too anonymous to hold in a single idea. This is clear

1 month ago | narrativemagazine.com | Mimi Kusch

Share Facebook Threads Reddit Forward Print Copy link Your name is a sentence, the beautiful one has come. If my name were a sentenceit would beI make my own misery. Lady of two lands twohands two hearts. In this oneshe is kissingher daughter. In this one I amwonderingif some people are betterthan others. Better at tolerating each other. Already a reader? Sign In

1 month ago | narrativemagazine.com | Carol Edgarian

Listen to Helen Gu read her poem: It’s sharp enough to pierce nine suns—           the knife my mother seizes in herwaxen hands. Next to the storm-stained window       muted with breath, the rusted tip beggingfor a body between the wooden frames. Beneath       the chrysanthemum light fogged with want, I imaginemy mother as a girl on the kitchen floor, knees       stacked like broken plates.

1 month ago | narrativemagazine.com | Carol Edgarian

Listen to Jake Welton read their poem: i’ll never be this beautiful again / bleeding orchid / face down in a pool of booze / sweat illuminated in whiskey-refracted light / to think this makes me a woman / rhinestones in my teeth / press-on nail that took some cuticle with it / all the things we do in bathroom stalls / our false uteri / always detachable and quivering / stitches never pulled tight enough / we are good boys / anything but human / good boys worshipping skin in the darkest parts...