A man with the right scruffed-up beard and breadth of chest swaggered into the S and M dungeon that was my place of business, and twenty minutes and one grand later had my chin — still soft with the downy fluff of teen-girl skin — held steady in one paw while the other one flew at my face so hard and fast that I ceased to exist as the same collection of matter I had been the previous instant.
When Sarah’s mother, Penny, got sick four years into our marriage, we decided to move back to Mississippi, considering it penance for the sins of our youth. We signed a lease on a house, a white one-story on the historical register with a wraparound porch and angels, stars, and the moon painted on the transom above the front door.
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Filling The Void | Jari Chevalier Bruce K. Alexander On How Our Culture Is Making Us Addicted
Our Own Devices | Gianpaolo La Paglia A photo essay on people lost inside their phones
Before It’s Too Late | Mary DeMocker Mary Christina Wood On Avoiding Climate Disaster
Readers Write on “Guests” A mysterious presence, a troupe of anarchists, a nocturnal visitor
We Need To Talk | Amy Amoroso Anne Hallward On Breaking Our Silence And Overcoming Shame
Readers Write on “Being Busy” A family vacation, a secret romance, a refugee’s plight
White Lies | Mark Leviton Ijeoma Oluo On Privilege, Power, And Race
Poetry By Tony Hoagland “Though grudging at first, / he fell like the rain, with his eyes wide open, / willing to change.”
Unfair Advantage | Tracy Frisch Stacy Mitchell On How Amazon Undermines Local Economies
Readers Write on “Men And Women” A teacher’s legacy, a professor’s dilemma, a stranger’s confessions
The Holiness Hidden Within The World | Laura Esther Wolfson Rabbi Rachel Timoner On Rediscovering Judaism
Displaced Persons | Clemens Kalischer A photo essay on European war refugees into the U.S. in 1947 and 1948
Prisoner Of Hope | Judith Hertog Cornel West’s Quest For Justice
Father Figure | Zun Lee A photo essay on black fathers and their children in the Bronx and Harlem
Our Grand Delusion | Corey Fischer Norman Fischer On The Tyranny Of The Self
A Long Life | Raffaele Montepaone A photo essay on the rural people of Calabria, in southern Italy, who live an unusually long time
Sunken Treasures | Michael Shapiro Sylvia Earle On Why We Need To Protect The Oceans
Readers Write on “Threats” A pack of dogs, a husband’s secret, an obsessive ex
Poetic Justice | Airica Parker Camille T. Dungy On Racism, Writing, And Radical Empathy
Love And Justice | Various Authors Poems that speak to the subtle and not-so-subtle injustices going on around us