the Lit's Fall 2020 issue, out now

Featured

• I DISSOCIATE IN THE CHIPS AND PRETZELS AISLE OF OUR LOCAL SAINSBURYS  By Sasha Carney

  and wonder if I have been unbodied since birth,
  if I could ever shake myself back into my skull
  or if it’s a lost cause kinda deal,
   
  if I could eat Kettle’s Salt and Vinegar till it corrodes
  a hole in my squirming tongue and still not feel a thing;
  poke my pinky tentatively through,
   
  Doubting Thomas to my own troubled sinew.
  Saint Peter raises an eyebrow at this metaphor
  from over by the sour straws and I yell
   
  Fuck you, you’re a fairy story
  and can’t quite make myself believe it.

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• Coming to Los Angeles  By Mariah Kreutter

  You land at LAX and the sky is gray. You feel cheated: it was sunny in Newark. The palm trees are skinnier than you imagined. They look kind of silly, swaying in the wind against a backdrop of so much concrete, like overgrown teenagers out of place at a school dance.

  You take a Lyft to your short-term lease. “Welcome home,” the driver says, and you don’t correct him because you like the idea of being from here.

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• Xuyong  By Baylina Pu

  village in Sichuan, China
   
  1.
  My grandfather’s grave is carpeted
  with snails. They leave weeping trails of purple,
  ink prints against the hard clay.
  Earlier, in a Daoist temple,
   
  I saw a bat for the first time
  in the jubilance of day, swooping
  from rafter to roof tile
  chewing the mug of insects
  engulfed in sky.

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