Tub Gloves, Always New 

in conversation with the work of Evan Nicholls 

At first, I was the only one who noticed. My ear nearby. It asked to be unearthed. Beneath leaf and treemoss, so cautiously lost in ivy. The tub, I positioned it with bricks. I cleaned it and polished it and watered it and rinsed. A line began to form. Curious swarms of question marks. Before long, I was selling hats. Bath mats. Sponges. Strong messages on stationary like I Might Need a Scrub, or I Do Believe in Bathing Daily. Often, there was a line. A line to step inside. To take pictures from within the tub. I helped every balancing hand. Every cash donation, every token of appreciation. Some said the gutter spoke deeply. Some said the drain was ours. 

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Curtains of Curdled Cake

after Rauan Klassnik

The flowers are rotten. They rot then blossom. They die then revive. They live. Now, everyone will drink. Beautiful chalk of lost teeth, ghostly and limp. Eat eight flowers and collect ten nails. Tack petals to the base of my gut. My knuckles. My lungs. A lunging of pain. The helmet, fitted and ripped, finished and torn. It gives the character a scar. A chimney lined with spikes. Dressed with flesh. To keep out the crows, the jailed man weeps. We cover his exposed lid. We cover his cover. We gloss. 

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Benjamin Niespodziany's work has appeared in Fence, Fairy Tale Review, Sporklet, Maudlin House, and others. Along with being featured in the Wigleaf Top 50, his writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction. His debut chapbook, The Northerners, was released at the end of 2021 through above/ground press. A returned Peace Corps volunteer, he now works nights in a library in Chicago.