kevin latorre

Kevin LaTorre is a writer and poet living with his family in North Carolina. His stories, essays, and poems have appeared (or will appear) in Plough Magazine, Pere Ube, Reformed Journal, Solid Food Press, Ad Fontes, Front Porch Republic, and other venues. He parses literary Christianity through essays and poems at his Substack, A Stylist Submits.

an excerpt from “love-all”

Jeremiah and Eric formed a habit of sitting courtside for long stretches of time, and their wives had to join them. They sat in an eternal order—Eric on the far right, Joanna beside him, Jeremiah beside her, and Avital beside him. Perhaps these talks were what Jeremiah so loved. It was like a bad picnic. Avital would wipe her forehead and worry over Nathan at home with the sitter, and everyone beside her was lost in a haze of steady cigarette smoke. Eric drank from an obscene thermos of mint julep, and so did Jeremiah. They spoke nonsense about their newsrooms and the bubkes there. Jeremiah, of course, didn’t actually use the tainted word “bubkes.” From time to time, Joanna would present her chest and add inane gossip. Around her cigarette, Joanna spoke with an unpredictable cadence, daintily and with malice. Jeremiah leaned into her words, match after match.

His head was lowered to her soft dark voice, like his ear was a vessel Joanna’s lips would fill with oil. Avital averted her eyes and wiped her throat. Despite herself, she imagined the stench of Joanna’s cigarette put out on her husband’s neck.

Read more of Kevin’s work in Solum Journal Volume V (forthcoming).