Evanescent Dolores When the alarm bleats at five, she gathers herself, swings her legs over the side of her single bed, and slips her feet into waiting slippers. Her back hurts, and she’s still tired. But she shuffles across the room to the stove and spoons Bustelo into her silver coffeemaker. She turns on the…
Category: Issue One
Ama Asantewa Diaka
Hand me down It is not only Mamaa’s genes that have punctuated their geography on Ayebea’s face. It’s her personality too. Saturday evening, and they’re glued to the TV watching The Voice. Jaden, Aunty Gifty’s son, has his audition airing tonight, and they don’t want to miss it. A lanky white girl with a voice…
Piper Gourley
Ziggy Stardust is in the Walls 1/ My mother says a prayer over my shaking body. I do not join her. God kisses the sad children, the good ones. I am not a good one. I am preparing to be swallowed. I am apart from the belly of the institution—from the clinic’s yellow bricks, the…
M.E. Bronstein
The Electric Gate This is the cover of Ada’s copy of Beyond the Gate of Bone by Madeleine J. Anscombe. The important details: A stain born during a very boring dinner party. Ada always reads under the table even though her mother has told her not to be rude and could you please try to…
Sabrina Helen Li
I bear so much about you The sparrows are swollen, and nobody notices. My father doesn’t know this, but I’ve replaced the deer, the birds, the squirrels in our backyard with statues. He shoots, and the stone blossoms. My father smiles, not knowing the difference. The blood is still left in the body. When I’m…
Jasmine An
ONE OF MY FIVE BODIES WAS BORN A DRAGON AND BECAME A HORSE PRAYER FOR A FAILED MASC BATESIAN MIMICRY ONE OF MY FIVE BODIES WAS BORN A DRAGON AND BECAME A HORSE One of my five bodies was born a dragon and became a horse in atonement for eating another horse. Underneath my white…
Morgan Thomas
Hitching Walk on the right side of the road in a taffeta dress with a parasol on your shoulder, and people will make assumptions. They’ll think you’re down on your luck. They’ll think you’re lost. They’ll think they’re doing you a favor pulling off the road to offer a ride. He pulled off. He pulled…
Nadia Alexis
Watershed I arrive at my father’s feet a dyingmapou tree. He covers his eyes withmud while the goats feast on my fallen hair. I hear my mother call for the Lordto send just enough rain for our lungs& her carnations to see a new season. My mother always says boys & men are bestat taking.…
Editor’s Note
Dear Reader, At the end of every academic year, the staff of Michigan Quarterly Review gathers over pizza to chat and to dream. There’s usually a marker board (or a long pad to write on), and sometimes there’s a bag of Hershey’s Kisses on the table. We call it the Dream Session, and here, we…