Wall paintings
are for looking at.
Mirrors are not. Mirrors
are puzzles for finding
your way in or out.
Once, I found on my way
a geode thinking itself
an unfertilized egg
thinking itself
to […]

‘The silence gathered and struck me. It bashed me broadside from nowhere, as if I’d been hit by a plank. It dropped from the heavens above me like yard goods; ten acres of fallen, invisible sky choked the fie […]

I left my body, my home, and my life at 5:14 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon in May, just as the peonies outside turned their faces upward and smiled their brightest smile. One minute I was cutting up […]

the fancy radio my wife gifted
into my simple pickup
has finally died

despite all manner of punching and twirling,
little instrument won’t rouse,
nor even static startle, and
the bright digital time s […]

The first photo I took, when I was twelve years old, was of treetops. I’ve always loved nature. My subjects over time have not changed—I still take pictures of nature even when I’ve traveled overs […]

These searched for their family records, but could not find them and so were excluded from the priesthood as unclean.
Ezra 2:62
I can’t tell you exactly what percent of my waking hours is spent looking for t […]

Ocean wind pushes the four of us
with such force that we lean onto each other
perched side-by-side on a pile of rocks –
daughter, mother, daughter and the father
standing behind. The mother’s face cov […]

Collateral Damage: 48 Stories, the title of Nancy Ludmerer’s debut collection of captivating short stories, invites threat and suspense, but her sterling craft and literary sensibilities upend all e […]

I have a touch of prosopagnosia (that’s Latin for: oh shit), which is an inability to recognize faces. For me it’s always been a transient condition, hitting without warning. Certain situations are predictably […]

Kay Rae Chomic is the 3rd place winner of Streetlight’s 2022 Flash Fiction Contest

Stephanie climbed her porch stairs, nodded at the two pumpkins with carved misshapen noses, mouths, and teeth. One […]

Heather Street by Jasper Glen I’m standing here on Heather Street Beside empty buildings that used to be the RCMP’s. A lot now owned by the government, leased To the film ind […]

I would describe what I witnessed that day as a meeting of the mundane and the spiritual. I was a young man living in Boston, Mass., in the late 1970s, when I saw something that made an indelible impression on me. […]

I gave up early:
and went to a houseboat
to mourn:

both named a beer
and splashed next
to woes about your love
in a bunk of redwood
done messy by stinkbugs.

your ad […]

The first time I saw Bad Dog Ollie, he gave me the stink eye. He was in a large pen with a flock of adorable puppies, who ran and tumbled and played in a group. He stood to the side, staring up at me with his […]

To the new family I sent a letter about the house and our memories of living there for forty-five years.

I did tell them lots of information about the house that they needed to know. I gave advice about things […]

Morels

………………….For Tom Proutt

In my latest unsuccessful hunt for the unicorn
of the woods, I found a two-point buck skull,
a square of soapstone, a 1952 Mennen bottle,
and a foxhole. […]

More than half a century ago

(wtaf)

when I was five, my parents bought a DC row house that came furnished

(an estate sale? someone walking away from their whole life?)

with lots of heavy dark furniture […]

John Adinolfi is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2022 Flash Fiction Contest
 

All the times of their lives happened at the shore. She was a lifeguard. He was beach patrol. He tripped over h […]