Well Done

by Kim Chinquee

It’s almost mid-November, the time Lisa’s husband starts to shop for neckties, removing his spring and summer polos from the closets and the dressers, leaving a parade of clothes that look like rugs spread throughout the hallways. He forgets about the dogs, how they make their own collage of dirty paws on his discarded costumes.

Fuck this, he says to his old styles. It’s time to go shopping.

He wasn’t always like this. They met in college, and he was always saving. She took out as many loans then as she was allowed, and once financial aid kicked in and took care of her tuition, she’d beeline the bus to Marshall’s finding earrings, shoes and hats. Fake eyelashes, fake nails, fake fur. The real stuff was expensive, and she didn’t believe in killing animals. She grew up on a farm and was friends with cows, and sometimes as a child, she imagined the farm life in reverse: what if the cows were in control? Milking humans, killing them, wearing human skins? Sending them to human slaughterhouses so the cows could sit at fancy tables, talking about eating them either rare, or medium rare, well done. And the waitress talking about specials. What wine would go best with Adam’s missing rib? With a side of Eve’s forbidden apple?

Oh, honey, Lisa says. At least her husband doesn’t wear leather anymore. He’s high maintenance, though, with his purging of outfits. She finds it a bit endearing, how he can get rid of his old clothes without blinking an eyelash.

And he donates. She’s not sure to where exactly. He says Peaceprints does a collection to help inmates adjust. He says former convicts always need clothes, especially his nice ones.

He watches murder mysteries obsessively. The TV’s always on, and it’s usually tuned to Dateline. With all the channels, there’s almost always an episode of Dateline. And if there isn’t, there’s always 20/20, 48 Hours, Law and Order. 

Lisa’s realized, over the years, he’s started paying less attention to her and more to the outfits of the people on the shows. He’ll say, Look at that scarf! Wow, what expensive shoes. There are blazers and sports coats. They hardly ever show the prison clothes.

Her husband never wears orange. He never wears jumpsuits. Nor elastic. He tried to get her to wear handcuffs once, but of course she said no.

 

Kim Chinquee’s eighth book (her first novel) Pipette was published with Ravenna Press (2022). She’s the recipient of three Pushcart Prizes, senior editor of New World Writing Quarterly, associate editor of Midwest Review, and chief editor of ELJ (Elm Leaves Journal). She co-directs the Writing Major at SUNY-Buffalo State University, is a triathlete, and lives with her three dogs in Tonawanda, NY. Her website is kimchinquee.com.

 

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The Man Who Helped Me

by Kim Chinquee

 

My apartment got so hot. I finally shut the windows. It’s hotter to keep them open, which lets in the heat and the noise of motorbikes blaring off the Interstate doing wheelies. And the bus: loud even in its rule-following, letting people off and on and off…

I’m healing from a bike crash. It was my fault. It was a time trial. I was going fast, then tried to stop and couldn’t unclip my shoes right.

I found a way to use my SkyMiles to get myself and my two dogs a hotel that has AC.

We’re on the 12th floor. I look down into the city and out to the great lake—where I ride along it on the bike path. I look out to the break-wall. I know what it’s like to walk there.

The dogs tilt their heads. I tell them: Hey guys, I could’ve found a better hotel, but not every hotel likes you.

On the bed, I sprawl the best I can. One of my ribs is fractured.

I turn up the AC.

I go to Walgreens for the third time since my crash. Buy more dressings. I’m getting to know which kinds work better for the road rash on my knuckles, on my fingers, on my elbow, knee. The raw skin on my shoulder.

I take off my old dressings. The bruise on my hip has turned a lighter purple.

I run the shower and feel the water with my fingers. The sting.

I step in, adjust the temp. I address my wounds and wash them.

It’s my goal to find the man who helped me. He picked me up and drove me to the ER. He even brought my bike there, all banged up except for a wheel.

 

Kim Chinquee grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, and served in the medical field in the Air Force. She’s published hundreds of pieces of fiction and nonfiction in journals and magazines including The Nation, Ploughshares, NOON, Storyquarterly, Denver Quarterly, Fiction, Story, Notre Dame Review, Conjunctions, and others. Her seventh collection, Wetsuit, was published in 2021 with Ravenna Press, and her debut novel, Pipette, is due out July 2022, also with Ravenna Press. She is the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and a Henfield Prize, Senior Editor of New World Writing, and co-director of SUNY—Buffalo State’s Writing Major. Her website is www.kimchinquee.com.

 

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A Little Airshow

by Kim Chinquee

 

On my fourth date with the banker, I wait at the table. He arrives talking on his phone, in his suit and tie. He’s some minutes late, as he said he would be. I was a minute late, so I’m relieved that finally this time, he didn’t arrive before me. We’re at Angelo’s, a place he’s never been. He asked me to pick a place near me. The place is Italian and not as fancy as the one down the street he’s been to many times.

When he gets to the table, I stand, we hug. We kiss. I say, “I already ordered wine.” I haven’t sipped it yet though. I ordered a sparkling and like to watch the bubbles.

He’s tall. His hair is white and clean-cut. His eyes are blue. He has dimples, white teeth and clear skin. I keep forgetting his age, but I think that he is sixty. I teach art. I should be better about numbers. I’m just over fifty. We met on Match. The inventory, at least for me, and what I’m looking for, is pretty slim there.

Our last time together was at my house, after he had dinner with his mother. It was my first time seeing him wearing something casual. Shirt and jeans. I gave him a tour of my garden, and though it was starting to get late, the moonlight glowed on the roses, the bellflowers, and he said he loved the scent. We hugged there in the back and he kissed my neck. My dogs wagged their tails. The singing birds gave us a little airshow.

He stayed the night. He gave me backrubs. After sex, he held me in his arms, and said it was my job to stay there. He fell asleep and started snoring. I stayed locked into his arms. I tried to relax. I told myself to relax. I told myself, enjoy this. After a while, I just told myself to take in all the senses. I took in his smell. The texture of his skin. The sound of him. I studied his face and even watched him breathe. I finally fell asleep there.

He’s regional president and manages 34 banks. Or maybe 43? He gets up at five am and does yoga every morning. My first time at his apartment, we woke early and had another round of touching. He lives downtown in a renovated apartment with high ceilings. His unit is the highest. He made me coffee. I wasn’t sure I’d see him again.

I can miss the bus on some things.

This is my first spring/summer in my new home. New things bloom each day. Today it was the hollyhock. Yesterday, daylilies spouted up. And the trumpet vine! Every morning, after breakfast, I visit the raspberry bushes, and eat every ripe thing I see. Every one’s a gift. Every one’s delicious!

I drive to the lakeshore, where I swim with fellow athletes. We wear nylons under wetsuits to help us get them on right. Through goggles, we see rocks and fish. We rotate our arms and legs, our bodies, moving through the waves. Loons are quiet trumpets on the water. I cycle with my friends, and we ride for miles with hydration systems, disc brakes, electronic shifting, carbon wheels. We go down hills at high speeds. Sometimes we have to traverse to get up them.

After Angelo’s, the banker comes to my place.

We go up to my bedroom.

We remove our clothes and we wait for the roar.

 

Kim Chinquee is the author of seven collections, most recently SNOWDOG (Ravenna Press). Her next collection PIPETTE is forthcoming with Ravenna Press, along with her novel-in-flashes BATTLE DRESS (Orphan + Widow House). She’s the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, senior editor of NEW WORLD WRITING, chief editor of ELM LEAVES JOURNAL, and she co-directs the writing major at SUNY-Buffalo State.

 

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Three Micros: Body Parts, Chow, In the Reports

by Kim Chinquee

 

Body Parts
Wake up! says Raven the dog, standing over us. She puts her nose to mine, then to my boyfriend’s, getting between us.

She paws at my face, the pace of her movement gaining in momentum. This stirs the other dogs: Bird, who talks in a whine. Part Husky, she sings when she’s sad or hurt, or hungry.

The other dog, our Japanese Chin, starts his routine of stepping all over us, and the other one, our Papillon mix, gets out from under the bed, hops up and starts his lick. He’s fond of the hair on my boyfriend.

I pull the covers over me, trying to get back to my dream of key lime soda, cauliflower crackers, a submarine that flies higher than an airplane.

The playoff continues: Raven digs with her huge paws. Bird speaks. She jumps. Our Papillon, Pappy, uses his tongue with a passion. Our Japanese Chin, Spiff, uses us as a treadmill.

I scooch myself, under the covers, under this trampoline, this gym class, closer to my boyfriend. His breath is warm, his body strong. I kiss his stubble. I nuzzle myself.

 

Chow
“I hear you,” I say to the dog, Pappy, from behind the door that comes between the bedroom and the kitchen, where I am, with two of our other dogs, filling their dishes, from my scoop of dog food. Pappy’s a fast eater, chunky, and I imagine his food already gone by now. We have a system for reasons like this one.

Raven, the other dog, the big and young one, is in the bathroom, probably not eating. Probably sitting by the door trying to hear what’s going on in the other rooms without her.

The bathroom has two doors: one leading to the kitchen and one leading to the bedroom. The bedroom has two doors: one to the bathroom and another, to the kitchen.

The two dogs in the kitchen: our Husky mix Bird, and our Japanese Chin, Spiff, look up at me. “Eat!” I say, and Bird paws at the water dish, which is empty. it topples. “Silly,” I say and run the dish under the sink and fill it.

As the dogs eat and drink, I add water to the vase of sunflowers that were gifted to me by my neighbors’ twin grandkids after I made them cookies for their birthdays. I finger the stem, and think of my son and his wife, if they really are never having kids like they say. They have a dog named Hazel, and a one-eyed cat named Nip, who is too fat from eating all the dog food.

Pappy paws at the door again, whines. Spiff and Bird make chopping sounds, their teeth into the hard nuggets. Spiff looks up at me with his big eyes, tilts his head. “Good boy,” I say. He looks like he’s smiling.

I head to the bathroom, where Raven is positioning herself, laying with her paws out. “Eat!” I say. But she doesn’t eat much when my boyfriend isn’t in the room with her. (But she’ll eat everyone else’s, if we let her.) “Dad’s at work, little girl,” I say. I scoop some of her food from her dish to the floor, which sometimes gets her started. I lift one kibble to my mouth, pretend to chew. “Yum,” I say and she yawns so hard and makes a sound like a Wow.

 

In the Reports
Be your best self, says my dad to me in a dream.

In real life, he doesn’t say this. He says things like, I’m sorry I was such a bad dad. Please don’t tell anyone about me.

I wake to the rain, my stomach rumbling. Look out to the peach tree in the back yard that I planted. I stub my toe on a chair leg.

I pee.

I start to wonder who my best self is, how to use the best of me. My regrets. Wishing some of my time back.

My daughter’s married now. A soldier.

When I was young, my good friend was abducted. I was the last one, at least in the reports, who saw her.

I make myself some toast. My four dogs surround me and they stir. My partner, still in bed, talks in his sleep. He says Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice.

 

Kim Chinquee is the author of the collections OH BABY, PRETTY, PISTOL, VEER, SHOT GIRLS, WETSUIT, the forthcoming collection SNOWDOG, and the forthcoming novel-in-flashes, BATTLE DRESS. She’s the recipient of two Pushcart Prizes, lives in Western New York, and serves as the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Northeast Regional Chair.

 

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Woo

by Kim Chinquee

She sits at the counter, sipping the broth from her soup, lifting her long arm. Her elbow drags to the floor. It takes a lot of effort. (more…)

Justice

by Kim Chinquee

After the owner asked my boyfriend Dave and I if we wanted beer or soda, giving Dave a beer, he showed us piles of explosives, what this one did and that one. Each with a name, and the owner took us out, showing what one called Texas Justice was made of. It was a Boomer. Noise with nothing pretty. I told Dave I hated those. We left there with him two beers in and two hundred dollars lesser, and he told me he was happy with his purchase, that he’d give the children memories. (more…)

Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.

Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.

Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.

Submissions

Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again September 15, 2025. Submit here.

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