The writers, poets, essayists, artists and photographers featured in the current issue of The Thieving Magpie.
On the runway before climbing up the tail-gunner tells me he has a bad feeling about this trip. Says these 17s feel like a coffin to him and he’ll bail out at the first sign of trouble. I say we all will as a last resort but he’s not listening so I shut up.
Bright sun. My eyes water. You are standing at the end of the point. On the horizon, Kirk and Matty float back-to-back on the inner tube, legs dangling in the cold water. A small finch lands on a bough of the spruce in front of me, and its weight reveals a linen shoulder–Anita’s shoulder–level with your knees.
Several years earlier, when I sat in traffic court, I found a woman guilty of speeding. I believed the officer, and since he’d cited her a block from my health club at about 4:50 pm, I had a hunch she was racing to a class there. “I find you guilty,” I said, then offered her traffic school. A month or so later, in my health club’s sauna, a man emerged from the steam and approached me. “Are you a judge?” he asked. Both of us were buck naked.
