2 minutes read time
It’s the season of candy hearts, overpriced roses, and Galentine’s Day, when a cherub with a diaper and an arrow flies around, and we at the CR have love on the brain. In honor of Valentine’s Day, here’s a roundup of some miCRo pieces that fit the holiday: some sweetness, some sexiness, and some reflections on love:
“Ledge (ars poetica) (love poem) (true story)” by Amorak Huey
This prose poem shows how those in love can lean on each other, even on the thin ledges of life.
“Spin” by Tara Isabel Zambrano
The story of a fervent love affair, featuring a spider bite, an approaching hurricane, and the rotation of the Earth.
“How to make me orgasm” by Lucy Zhang
Enough said, really—but this is no Cosmo article: Zhang uses unexpected language to evoke what the speaker’s sexual needs are, including engineering manuals, business-speak, and cuisine.
“New Normal” by Dinah Cox
A man asks the clerk at a hardware store to marry him in the opener of this story, which has one foot in melancholy and the other in hope.
“When We Were Astronauts” by David DeGusta
“We eloped the week after the moon landing, the Apollo men back on earth but still quarantined. . . .”
“Green Line” by Chen Poyu (trans. Nicholas Wong)
A lover thinks about how flatworms cut in half will grow back on both sides, in this poem translated from the Chinese.
“The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by Matthew Tuckner
Every moment of this couple’s afternoon (including two trips to the bathroom) is awash in the dark humor of late-stage capitalism, but their love, it seems, remains untouched by the era’s cynicism.
“Ortolan” by Lauren Osborn
Microfiction about desire intersecting with literal hunger, “golden skin goosed and slick with buttery oil.”
And of course, don’t forget our fall feature on writing about sex!
