Poetry by Edgar Kunz and Leigh Lucas, and short stories by Mary Grimm, Lesley Nneka Arimah, and Bennett Sims

~
He was like tissue paper
coming apart in water.
—From Fixer, a collection of poetry by Edgar Kunz (Ecco, 2023). These lines are from "Fixer" [I held him together], which was first published (as "Piano") in The New Yorker (November 7, 2022), p. 41. It appears on pages 46-47 of the paperback. 

All that week, Bob Lilly was working on the gas tank of his car, which had to be replaced. He was doing it in my driveway because he lived with his sister, and she wouldn't let him do it at her house. He was the smartest person I had ever met, which didn't mean that he was in any way a success in life or had as much sense as my cat. 
—From "Fate and Ruin," a short story by Mary Grimm, One Story, Issue 265 (May 15, 2020).

Buchi woke to the thwack-thwack of the machete in the grass and the offended clucks of the chicken who took issue with the noise. Every few moments a ping would echo as the blade struck the stucco of the house. She counted on the sharp sound to wake her daughters.  
—From What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, a collection of short stories by Lesley Nneka Arimah (Riverhead Books, 2017). This section is from "Buchi's Girls," which begins on page 123 of the hardcover. This particular story originally appeared in Five Points (Vol. 16, No. 3).

The boy begs his mother to buy him a balloon. As they leave the grocery store and cross the parking lot, he holds the balloon by a string in his hand. It is round and red, and it bobs a few feet above him. Suddenly his mother looks down and orders him not to release the balloon. Her voice is stern. She says that if he loses it, she will not buy him another. The boy tightens his grip on the string. He had no intention of releasing the balloon. 
—From "Fables," a short story published in White Dialogues: Stories by Bennett Sims (Two Dollar Radio, 2017), pp. 127-139 in the paperback. "Fables" was previously published in Conjunctions and Subtropics (as "The Balloon"), and anthologized in the Pushcart Prize XXXIX. I mentioned a couple of stories from one of his other books, Other Minds and Other Stories (2023), in a blog post from 2024.

I empty my pockets of odd little flyers and tear-off numbers
for pest solutions and local handymen. I save them; some
may prove critical at the end of the world.
—From "I empty my pockets of odd little flyers," a poem published in Landsickness, a chapbook of poetry by Leigh Lucas (Tupelo Press, 2024, p. 9). This poem was first published in The Tusculum Review. 

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

~
. . . 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).