Expat Press - Page 3 of 187

Concrete Mixer – Liu Xingli

December 28, 2020

Stuffed Toys

A lady came to H&M
To buy new year gift for friends
Liked a stuffed toy immediately
Head of an antelope
But back humped up
And covered with a round floral cloth
Later she liked
A green dinosaur
Too lovely to be
A carnivore
She also wanted a stuffed toy of
Her own
In the heap at home
None was hers
She had neither when she was small
Dinosaur,

Stories

Survivor – Logan Roberts

December 27, 2020

Sitting at a traffic light in downtown Orlando at 11:32 pm. Surrounded by shopping complexes, on my way home from work. I was a dishwasher at a vegan restaurant. The slow crawl between traffic lights, even this close to midnight. I had an hour commute. I thought,

What if a plane crashed in the road right now?

What if the first sign was bodies falling from the sky

and I saw one?

Art

Womb – Rachel Kass

December 26, 2020

I Only Think of You When I Can’t See Me

As anger corrodes, first in the bones of the toes
an endless presuppose in Idaho

I wasn’t inside of me
couldn’t leave you safely

a crux, a crux,
a crux decomposed.

I keep my curtains folded
in the closet, knowing.

Waltz #17

my ash laden country
fermenting economies
lie low down next to me
in sacred geometry in
Firm steamed Lace
moving out the afterwards
into the crown of my head
watching,

Stories

A Fun Dinner Date – Myra Glass

December 25, 2020

“You know you look good for a sissy boy” the Crypt keeper croaked on this 5th glass of wine. “Most sissy boys have an uncanny valley effect going on with their faces. Makes them hard to look at but you got some nice girly features babe! Good price too!” A smile crawled across his face, the wrinkles simply too numerous, waves violating an ugly sea of rotting skin. This man should have been dead.