. Glimpse by Sarah Torribio

She was the kind of girl who crossed her legs a lot, not out of modesty but because she knew it called attention to her calves, and to the whisper of skin that showed above her knees. She didn’t regret the jagged line of scar tissue bifurcating one of her knees—an artifact of a childhood bicycle spill. The line was like a road sign or a green light, demanding attention. Once she drew the triangular blade of an arrow above this line because that’s how she thought of it, thought of every part of her body. Road signs, hieroglyphics, neon lights, pointing to the immense appeal of all that was so very publicly private.

Like many young women who come into surprising beauty, and who have seen strange men’s eyelids grow leaden with desire, she had become obsessed with the power of the non-encounter, the strange glimpse. Her eyeballs had grown nearly prehensile, looking for the spectators that lurked at every bus stop, in every aisle of the grocery store, particularly among the produce, where she handled tomatoes suggestively and bit like a rabbit into a plundered strawberry.

Once, on a trip to New York, she passed a subway vent blowing hot air, and actively mourned that she had worn jeans that day. A chance to be Marilyn ruined by a pair of Levi’s. She never wore jeans again.

It wasn’t that she was vain. It was just that she possessed a sharp beauty that seemed almost painted on at times. She’d emerged from a heavy, stolid childhood as something rare, like a new flavor of soda pop, or an Eastern European émigré in a Midwestern town. She was a piece of un-hung art, a silent movie star without a screen.

She would have been startled to find that her most avid audience was her own furtive eyes.

Bastard by Katrina Lising

On more than one occasion,
He had been accused of not having a soul.
The people in his life, mostly the women,
Cursed him time and time again.
They called him bastard—
The bastard with no conscience.
They told him he could not possibly be human—
Usually at the top of their lungs
Tears gushing from their eyes
Snot dripping from their lips
Yet they all loved him.
Of all the hate that spewed out of their mouths
Forceful and passionate
Cupped inside a woman's rage
None could find strength to cultivate in their hearts.
They all wondered why.
He was not a handsome man
Yet they gravitated to him
Like children to an ice cream truck on a hot summer day.
He was not ugly.
His frame was built for hard labor.
At a glance, or even a stare, His physical was mediocre.
They wondered.
It was his mind, or more accurately, his words.
It was his inner being that made him so painfully beautiful.
He was charming in the most addictive way.
He was "happy." He was joy—
Concentrated in one person
And every instant you were with him.
They all wondered.
They all knew.