There was a view of the new neighbor’s ass crack from my living room window as he bent over, trimming the blackberry bushes. The dog and I stood there gaping from behind our paisley curtains. We’d gawked at this natural wonder on numerous days, had counted them up. His ass had eight different shapes, and when he mooned us, we glowed as if an emergency generator turned on. “Hard to believe he only has one body,” I said to the dog. I could imagine him as a teenager with a less meaty ass, but didn’t want to—so colourful in his sixties he was, with his “Escape from Earth” T-shirt and wilted camping hat. Because of this man and his refillable weeds, I was sparkly after just a few glasses of rum in the afternoons, leaning toward beautiful each night. I stood there grinning right back at it—telling myself to wake up and smell the blackberry bushes.
is the author of five flash fiction collections and two novellas-in-flash, and is the recipient of the Blue Light Book Award. Her work has been internationally anthologized in two Norton Anthologies, The Best Small Fictions 2018 and 2019, and the Wigleaf Top 50 List; and has appeared in over 350 literary magazines including Electric Literature, Craft, Literarian Center For Fiction, Tin House, Passages North, Wigleaf, and SmokeLong Quarterly.
She currently serves as Flash Challenge Editor at Mslexia Magazine; Festival Curator for Flash Fiction Festival, U.K. (Bristol); Co-Editor of Best Microfiction; and Founding/Managing Editor of New Flash Fiction Review.
