The Cold Inclusive

Julia Bloch’s “Letters to Kelly Clarkson”:

You and I, one hundred years ago, could have been pissing in a bucket for the right to vote.

Sarah Smallwood’s “Eunice Cooper, 82, Says George Clooney Can Have Sex With Her If He Wants”:

We would sip our tea in the afternoon sun, laughing, as if we’d done it every evening for the last 50 years, and maybe I’d say something that made him remember a girl he once knew, their love, their passion, and he’d see that in me, oh yes, and his eyes, crinkled with smiles, would turn serious, and then he’d look at me hard and pick me up and lay me on the veranda and if Patricia called to tell me about her husband’s umpteenth liver surgery I would not pick up that phone because she should have left him years ago but there’s just no telling some people.

Rachel Loden’s “Miss October”:

I think Hef loves October best / Because although he cannot / Say so, he is this close / To death.