I'm tired. Six-thirty at night and I was already considering bed. What a day. What a miserable, long, cold day. Rescuing the elderly from fires, unlocking secret spy codes, rotating the damn earth on its axis. What a goddamn day. I slumped down in my favorite recliner and threw my cape on the hat rack. Missed. My apartment was a mess.

A Daring Pilot by Ian Moore

HE stood positioned; arms laced behind, knotted at the wrists by a thick rope running an itch up the spine, feet distanced by the measure of his shoulders. It was a voluntary submission; senses careening forward, impacting at the smell of dust scuttered up by a footstep. Held tight by nothing, the world was immutable, absent, falling into the quagmire that one may call fate.
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He stood positioned; arms laced behind, knotted at the wrists by a thick rope running an itch up the spine, feet distanced by the measure of his shoulders. It was a voluntary submission; senses careening forward, impacting at the smell of dust scuttered up by a footstep. Held tight by nothing, the world was immutable, absent, falling into the quagmire that one may call fate.

Moonshine and Epsom Salt
by Jean McIntyre Cogdell

I OVERHEARD mama talking. When I came in the house the worry and anger in her voice made me tiptoe to the kitchen doorway. Grandma sat at the table; Mama’s voice stern. “Look at your face…” I eased back out of sight; something was wrong. Fear reached for my throat when I noticed the tears in Mama’s eyes.
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Power is to see parents as they are
to not show yourself as Mongol will
in awe to trace splendour’s serve, in one transcendent clear throne textile mill
Power saw the lie slice the apartment, for she is triumphant and speaks to
        contraceptive pill

She picks up the dress
that hangs on the bedpost
drapes it about her
and twirls
like a drunken ballerina.

The stairway cracks
The ants that tickle your toes
While you’re reading,

this man I saw today--
a silk-white gel-waved hairpiece
capping a sunless tan & a silver-grey suit--
threw his whole body forward for one instant,
as if he planned to jump
after his smartphone tumbled
through his fingers & down
to the subway tracks,
but he stopped as its screen shouted one last
breath of light before going dark,
the life inside ending with a plastic crack
that quieted as violently as it began.

I overheard mama talking. When I came in the house; the worry and anger in her voice made me tiptoe to the kitchen doorway. Grandma sat at the table; Mama’s voice stern.

“Look at your face…”

I eased back out of sight; something was wrong. Fear reached for my throat when I noticed the tears in Mama’s eyes.

Feelings by Alexander Girshin 

The moon was shining, is shining. It's as bright as a single headlight of a car stranded at the side of a desolate road somewhere in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in middle America. Middle America because I’ve been there and I know what it looks like at night when my car was stuck at the side of the road in the dark during a cross country road trip.
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Sgt. Tim Halloran leaned over the hospital bed where the boy in the coma lay. He insisted on seeing every overdose victim personally, to remind himself of why he fought the fight he did. This was the second victim of cob he had seen today. The fifth this week. The three hundredth this year alone. But still, each case got to him.

Sitting in front of the Apple screen, searching scouting relentlessly for a new home. My darling lounging in the other loft side, blanketed in Marin dark amongst our quilted necessities. Twang-ah! Bwang-a bwang! Do you like that sound? he asks to me; he is barely illuminated by the tree shuttered sky light.

The moon was shining / is shining. It's as bright as a single headlight of a car stranded at the side of a desolate road somewhere in the middle of nowhere / somewhere in middle America. Middle America because I’ve been there and I know what it looks like at night when my car was stuck at the side of the road in the dark during a cross country road trip.