A story by Austin Bunn, poem by Maxine Scates, and novel by Ha Jin

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. . . The papers arrived from the lawyer yesterday.  Soon I will be officially divorced from Scott.  I'm selling what I can. 
          "You have to come with me to the doctor," my mother says.
          But I have buyers coming.  I'm expecting to get money for my past life.  The pleasures of subtraction, of seeing things go. . . .  
--From "Everything, All at Once," a short story by Austin Bunn, first published in The Sun, Issue 390 (June 2008).  Reprinted in Pushcart Prize XXXIV (2010), pp. 414-424.

. . .   The jets 
are screaming overhead and in the intervals 
after they pass the neighbors are arguing again
and it doesn't matter which house because they all do: 
Big John and his nameless wife, Julia and Ted, 
The Smiths, Rosie and Bob, or Lynne and Jack, 
the ex-Hell's Angels who have settled down 
with their four kids.  They all pretend they can't hear
what the next is yelling but I'm the one who hears
nothing.  My mother is sleeping and my father 
has left for good . . .   
--From "Not There," a poem by Maxine Scates, first published in The American Poetry Review, Volume 37, Issue 4 (July/August 2008), p. 44.  Reprinted in Pushcart Prize XXXIV (2010), pp. 226-227.

Shao Bin felt sick of Dismount Fort, a commune town where he had lived for over six years.  His wife, Meilan, complained that she had to walk two miles to wash clothes on weekends.  She couldn't pedal, so Bin was supposed to take her on the carrier of his bicycle to the Blue Brook.  But this month he worked weekends in the Harvest Fertilizer Plant and couldn't help her.  If only they had lived in Workers' Park, the plant's apartment compound, which was just hundreds of paces away from the waterside. . . .  
--From In the Pond, a novel by Ha Jin (Vintage, 2000).