Kate Ryan

Okay, so maybe she didn’t really understand feminism.

Eva, having stayed up the whole night preoccupied with death and time, planned to call in sick.

A bloated mother in her polka dot one-piece gnaws on a corndog while reading the romantic pulp she picked up on her way out of the supermarket . . .

He thought I was mad, but in an artistic way; I thought he was horny all the time, but in an artistic way.

I would send some chocolates, but I’m not allowed anymore since they found the shiv in the birthday cake I sent you.

It was a tradition of theirs. When siblings Sue and Johnny went home to their mother’s for Christmas, they watched the 11 o’clock local news.

Someone would always cook in their tighty whities, his package at eye level for the person doing French homework at the kitchen table.

The birds abandon their posts in the pepper trees, sending tiny, oblong leaves raining to the ground.

He died a violent death. I saw him myself, flopping between wooden blades, his head bent back strangely.

My parents got the idea they’d send me to stay at my grandparents’ house in Florida for a week. I think my mother needed a week to herself.