Category: Flavor Town USA

Flavor Town USA: Four Poems by James Miller

On the Beach Tonight we’re driving along the South Shore, looking for a party to crash. Adjunct hell, frayed Spanish grammar— but Stevie prefers his Iberian cheeses. Dairy farmers steep their rounds in caves up north, he tells me. Slots carved in stone, cabrales throbbing in the dark. Does the mold think, or dream? Tendrils…
Flavor Town USA Poetry: “I served Kirk Douglas at Swensen’s ice cream” by Laurel Benjamin

peach or butterbrickle, but never anything heavyin the year of the flood. “50 years in 50 weeks”wineries up north washed away, plateaus turnedto sand, minerals leached on the edges of the baywhere tall grass bent for ducks. I signed offon a wardrobe of black slacks & a white button down,but changed for clubbing into cargo…
Flavor Town USA Poetry: “13 Bean Chili (As Desired)” by Avery Gregurich

after Albert Goldbarth “… and the goof-off kidney and lima and chili beans like Shriners and Masons and lodge brotherseverywhere marching and cavorting … the lady in the next line over says it has turned into such abeautiful day because you can’t see the the chemtrails foronce. the day had started out slow, frozen, great…
Flavor Town USA: Three Poems by Paul Siegell

SENDER. Kirwyn, some white space: A driver delivered our meal-kits on Saturday & I read your book to my wife last night while she fixed one for dinner. The transformation from raw to redaction. Only to transform again. There’s this pendulum we ride: When she works a 7a-to-7p at the hospital, I’m on eats. A…
Flavor Town USA: Three Poems by Rachel Becker

morning sickness the world hasan atmospheric stenchthat turns yourstomach cyclonicfor the fullnine months. other mothers-to-beoffer advice,but there’s no wayto white chicken meator preggo popyourself out of bed,or to short circuityour brain’smaladaptive mishmashof wires. a glitchthat renders toxic aluminum, toilet bowl,skin cream, stove topthe stench of water. your baby at 12 weeksis a photo of a…
Poetry for Flavor Town USA: “In Foil” by Kath DeGennaro

It’s something about the way you have to hold it in your handsthe way your mother might have made you onebefore she let you become out of her reach. When I see people eating sandwiches in public I cannot look away. It’s something about how you can eat it standing upwith your neck pushed forwardprimalor…
“Take-Out,” an original fiction by Kip Knott for Flavor Town USA

Sometimes Clay can’t believe he still lives in the house he grew up in. His dad still lives there, too. Clay and his dad have been hearing a strange sound in the house for well over a month now. They hear it in the morning as they guzzle cups of Taster’s Choice and nosh on…
Flavor Town USA Fiction: “Sin Eaters LLC” by Will Musgrove

It was my first day. Inside the company vehicle, my trainer, Bob, read me the client’s file: sampling grocery store grapes, getting a little too tipsy on Sunday wine, several ticky-tacky sins, nothing a newbie like me couldn’t handle. Bob assured me the job was easy. All you had to do was eat the sin…
Flavor Town USA Poetry: “We Feed the Living” by Courtney LeBlanc

The week my father died I dugthrough the freezer and pantryin my parents’ house, pulled outthe ingredients to make my sister’sfavorite dessert. As I stirred and bakedI thought of my father, his body smallbut his hands swollen with edema.As the peanut butter cookies cooledon the counter, the sweet smell filledthe house, I stared out the…