“We’ll cut here and here and then glide it right in,” the guy says, talking about the new stove he’s installing. I admire his confidence. Things in my world rip, stick, buckle, never glide—more like a flap, with a hiccup, a lot of oops that don’t matter now because somehow I stumbled my way into love that blooms in a little house with bird nests in the orange honeysuckle, a gorgeous surprise of a life with plenty of bumps and prickly parts to balance out the sweetness—no, to make it sweeter.
Victoria Melekian writes poetry, short fiction and, on occasion, a novella-in-flash. Her work has appeared in print and online and has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. She was a finalist for the 2024 Barry Spacks Prize and a semi-finalist for the 2024 Washington Prize. She lives with her husband in Carlsbad, California where the weather is almost always perfect.
