Author Archive for: erin.stalcup

See what things have come to? See? Yesterday, I very nearly fell asleep in the grocery line while waiting to buy you a ham.* You don’t like ham. Neither do I. But it’s the tradition. Every year, the ham “provokes” you. “Como me provoca!” Every year you say: “It’s just not right without the ham.” […]

I watched my husband’s death on livestream. A minute before impact, he held the camera at arm’s length, waved, and stuck out his tongue. He flipped the bird. “Today you fly with me.” He fastened the GoPro back on his head, facing the valley floor, spread out below him in miniature. Then he jumped. What […]

I met a woman who’d been struck by lightning. She held herself like a firefly when she told me. That’s something I thought. She was now her own gold. I was pregnant then, fourth boy, more full moon than ever. But all that beautiful milk went sour when he died, the stuttering milk that dripped […]

I am on top of a truly beautiful woman. I’ll call her Renée. Step back: we’re in her room, on her bed. I’m still wearing my men’s XL winter coat, all ready to walk out into the Connecticut winter. The coat reads “Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum” over the left breast, something that would only be […]

Every school morning, my father wakes me the same way: he yanks open my blinds, slaps his hands together, and says, “Boker tov, beautiful daughter. Time to rise and serve your Creator.”  Once upon a time, I didn’t need wake-up calls. I bounced out of bed as if each day delivered a surprise package. When […]

“The particles of matter are subject to strange vicissitudes.  Every atom has its peculiar history”  – John Cargill Brough Here is a cantaloupe.  Cut it open for that  pearly orangepink with a slash  of vibrant green.  Could you have guessed those colors  from the beige outside? Things are not always what they seem.  Now take […]

I tighten my body on the rain-softened sidewalk outside our home, waiting for my mother to pick me up and drive me to school. The wide street in front of me is quiet, covered in a thin layer of fog; there are no cars passing by this early in the morning. The silence almost feels […]

Shane Dugan reads Irish whenever he can, although he is no good at it. Is fearr Gaeilge briste, ná Béarla clíste / Broken Irish is better than clever English. He read a lot of things, poetry and prose, truth and fiction. He tried to stay away from newspapers; they often miss the most important parts […]

When we got back to the apartment, I was still buzzing with the beat of Shakira, the novelty of dancing late into the night at a Spanish club. But David turned to me, and he said, “I saw how you danced with all those guys.”  “What? I danced with my students. And my boss. You’re […]

When I was thirteen, I had a friend named Carly who was obsessed with pills—she took supplements, like echinacea, obsessively, counting them out, holding them in her hand. She liked the way the light cascaded off their slippery backs, something like that. Carly was a beauty and smart, but one of those who vanishes after […]

“Gumbucket!” the conductor called. Caleb jolted awake. He’d been leaning against the window of the train car, dreaming of a milky-eyed old man beckoning to him with a toothless smile and a paintbrush. Grandpa had better not be anything like that. “Great,” mumbled Aidan, Caleb’s older brother. “We’re here.”   Caleb stood on the seat […]

After Bruce Weigl   “I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” — Anne Frank   Or: the white cottage next door, the one with the boy. The blossom of the first bomb one winter morning, a golden veil falling over the neighbors. Imagine the first notes igniting the […]

In your local 7-Eleven, follow the unearthly scent of cologne. He’ll be sitting in a freezer box,   venting to the frozen dinners about how he resembles “dope with venom entailed.”   Proceed with caution. At first, he won’t look at you: his mind too busy dipping in   and out of the room. But […]

Lately I’ve imagined prettier iterations of my body turning cold: gleaming pearlescent, floating quietly towards the shoreline. Kneeled before a bird’s nest, cheekbones dressed with blood. One night, I found myself lovelier than ever, torn to pieces all over the bedroom floor. Something is flickering in and out of sanctity, set aquiver beneath this vicious […]