Prelude to the Bright and Warm

My latest piece is up at First of the Month.

https://www.firstofthemonth.org/prelude-to-the-bright-and-warm/

I hope you can find it because it is one Of which I am especially proud.

It begins:

A woman, who had been abused by her father, husband and brother-in-law, tries to starve herself to death while confined to a mental hospital. A college instructor, scarred from eye-to-throat and going blind, meets a poet who has lost the ability to speak. Political protesters, who have been arrested, find themselves starved, waterboarded, beaten with rifle butts, hung from ceilings, left for ants to nibble on their genitals, reduced to pus, piss, saliva, blood, snot, shit, “lumps of rotten meat,” and rendered unable to be touched or feel affection or achieve intimacy.