BROOKE SPALDING

A CALLBACK.

A brine in glass and metal scoot, an anonymous cast as rubber ducks posed next to a sign reserved. Preserved pimento bubbling apart in the bathtub, two currents warm down the drain, remember. I remember the midwest pause, it shows an inability spreading. Member of genius, elaborate.

PECULIAR, MISSOURI

Scene 1: FARMER pulls his TRUCK over on a farm road, the scrape of gravel on a turned wheel sounds

FARMER turns to HORSE who is sitting passenger

HORSE

Do you tell your friends I’m a good kisser?

FARMER

Errrr

HORSE straddles FARMER, her back pressed against the steering wheel of his TRUCK

FARMER leans in and HORSE tries to accept his tongue, FARMER’S braces feel hard against HORSE’S mouth

Scene 2: FARMER drops HORSE off in the southernmost part of the field, drives away in his TRUCK

HORSE starts her long walk back with three adderall pressed into the mud of her front right hoof

Brooke Spalding is a writer from Kansas City, Missouri. She is considered “Missouri hot” which makes the midwest her final resting place. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Always Crashing, phoebe, and Tampa Review, among others.