FICTION AND POETRY from The Literary Review

Five years ago, my husband used to beat me up. I knew some people were laughing at me behind my back, but I did not mind. When you're a battered wife the world shrinks like a squeezed lemon. The juice of your will dries up and all that's left is the bitterness of the rind. And the more you are squeezed, the more bitter life becomes.
     As I sold fish, I walked the streets like a ghost.
      [Flies, flies.]
     At that time I was just starting in the fish business. My husband had stopped giving me money from his copra harvest and I had to feed the children from my own sweat. But I was timid and shy; I was afraid of the marketplace competition. I shrank away from the scrambling for customers at the market stalls, contented with the scraps left by other fish dealers here. I was a small-time vendor, selling my fish from house to house. Hard on the feet, but easy on the competition.
      [Flies, flies, flies.]

  - Timothy R. Montes

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The Literary Review: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing has been published quarterly by Fairleigh Dickinson University since 1957. Its many special issues have introduced new fiction, poetry, and essays from many nations, regions, or languages to English readers. Issues focus on such topics as contemporary fiction in Portugese, Iranian exiles, new Irish writing, North African authors, and Philippine fiction and poetry. Works from issues devoted to writing in English have won awards and been reprinted in many collections.