...Mark L. Keats Copyright © 2019 Mark L. Keats 2019 Mark L. Keats Automaton Babies We re having a baby, my wife says to me. She s sitting at the com- puter in the living room and looking at something. A glass of wine nearby. I m not unhappy with the news, but I m confused. My wife has already...

...Tennessee Hill Tennessee Hill May Babies My parents raised us with sing-to-me-darlin arms. Another and another lullaby about a paw-paw patch or a star. Clap. We were way down yonder. Clap. The big family schism was nineteen years away, trackable like lightning. My brother and I grew barely...

... to them. Saadeya tried to protest but to no avail; both her husband and mother-in-law were headstrong like that. When they set their minds to something, it was going to happen no matter what, so she took no part in their planning and dreamt about her baby. Everyone wanted her to have a boy, even...

... was that their love would bloom in the dark like the birth of a mole rat. And when they finally found their depth, the guy, exhausted, fell back upon the pile of dirt and allowed the girl to create their home. She decided to make the first chamber the baby’s room. What home doesn’t need a baby? She would...

... go to the beach?” I ask her. “What’s it to you?” she says. I look up and down her arms for track marks, but they’re smooth as glass. “I got a baby,” she says. “It needs some milk.” I don’t believe her, but I slip her a twenty-dollar bill from the register. “Thanks,” she...

..., because the drama room is always open for loitering with its three couches, its small stage set with a table and stools and crates, folding chairs lined up along the back wall. Ada says, “We get our babies in two weeks, but it's like, I know shaking a baby is bad. Can we move on to a different lesson...

... Out represents Mo Yan’s bravura performance as a writer, and Lan Lian is such a touching, innocent fool that he even upstages the pro­ tagonist of this novel, Ximen Nao, who was reincarnated as a donkey, an ox, a pig, a dog, a monkey, and finally a baby. Lan Lian used to be Ximen Nao’s farmhand...

... be what you should be. And, if you believe, you will be: good brown. Bark-brown cough syrup that gums the mouth shut. Soft feed for the babies: a beaten egg. You go down easy. Maybe they will learn something. (Your baby marvels at my name. Some days she likes it, some days she doesn t. You tell her when...

... and we went to the same kindergarten, a small room in our church, full of sunflowers and praise. Carolyn was seven, I believe, and Cleo was just a baby, not even one year old. My father ran for the phone in the back office of the farm market (known always as the Strawberry for the large, smiling...

... to do with their biology in ways that it doesn’t for men. Moshiri Probably she’s referring to the part where there’s a prisoner and they use her baby to get a confession from her. By taking the baby away from her, they want her to confess, and then suddenly they bring...

... was standing behind a curtain. The next day Jen's undergarments were not down, Jeff and Jen were away, and Hunter's Crossing people began noticing. I saw Allie Burke run their terrier, Pepper, by, Steve Fuller walk past with a newspaper, June Anderson and the baby...

... is talk of a kid, like the one diagrammed on page 57 of the pregnancy book, whose arms and legs are fully extended, appearing to push on the uterus wall. I say “appearing” because I wonder about symbolic language in the womb. To me it looks like the baby is painting...

..., with his ex-wife and their baby. Vincent s arms wrap around her shoulders so that his hands cover hers. With his chin tucked to her shoulder, they are looking down at the child whose pinched red face stares right at the camera. In dreams, Paige comes to me holding our baby. Moments after waking, it s...

... no-strings-attached sex with another woman, and I say, yes, baby, of course. He tells me I’m amazing in bed, that it’s not about being unsatisfied, and I say, yes, baby, of course. I rock his world on the regular, and we both know it. He can barely string three words together after we make love. He...

... fell. I was certain the whole world would end in ice. When I heard life bleating from the forest, I trudged through the snow stacked over every roof. Under a drift, I unburied a stiff corpse, a baby ox abandoned, as my parents had abandoned me. I nested the babe between my thighs next to the fire s...

...Agnes Hanying Ong [email protected] © 2023 Agnes Hanying Ong 2023 Agnes Hanying Ong Plowman I Keep Seeing I Tell My Trash fuck I am trying, to be more compassionate, more American of a dick peeled clean, kosher, American dick in my Swiss molten patty Yeah baby, I am coming now...

... still know from that time. Karyn, who was my roommate then; my younger sister Leigh, who hung out with us a lot in those days; Grant and Jeff, friends who lent her money and stood around awkwardly, shuffling their feet and bounc- ing her baby. It was the first time it occurred to me...

... witch and pizza guy live? Gina frowns. No, just a mommy, daddy, and baby. Eliot sidles over, paints a thick red streak across the roof, and says, The witch amputated the pizza guy s arms. Now blood is dripping down the chimney. Gina hisses Get away! and edges toward Carole. Eliot gallops...

... a toast to his brother. “Here’s to m’ baby brother Chu,” he says, cup in the air, “Congratulations mijito, you’re now officially, older than shit.” Drinks thrown back, refilled, another toast, this one from Tío Tolú. “Gotta raise our glasses también brothers, to the rest...

...Mike Dockins © 2015 Mike Dockins 2015 Mike Dockins Who Shot J. R.? Alexander the Great shot J. R. & he’ll shoot you, too, & shoot your babies, & then he’ll burn the world, & burn the world’s babies. Sue Ellen shot J. R. because that’s the most obvious...