Ode to a Safety Pin by Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg   Genius of oval, ovum, overlap capable of great feats, holding back the waterfall of too much cleavage or in my case, too vast a high […]

Our Winners by Susan Shafarzek We’re happy to announce the winners of the 2026 Streetlight Essay/Memoir contest. First Prize goes to Wendy Kennar for “On a Scale Of . . . ”, […]

The Anxious Overthinker's Guide to Conception by Sarah Stubbs OCTOBER I awaken with a visceral heaviness, like dread, in my lower belly. My phone informs me it’s hours before dawn. Peering around the t […]

Darkness Over America by Fred Wilbur Twenty five hundred years ago, the Buddha propounded (among other ideas) that nothing in existence is permanent. Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-C […]

It's Raining by Ben Sloan   At age five, after my country doctor grandfather dies, fascinated by the black-and-white photos in his discarded depression-era medical books […]

Coming Down the Mountain by E. H. Jacobs The way down is always harder than the way up. On the way up a mountain, your muscles strain to push you vertically. Going down, you’re already t […]

The Moon by Kenneth Boyd ………………………………………………………….Tarsila do Amaral (Brazil, 1928) Since you last crossed the still, moonlit […]

Good Friday by Kathleen McKitty Harris   My Irish Catholic grandmother—no slouch herself to rosary beads and the Stations of the Cross—had a friend, Wilma, who was far more pious than […]

Distances by Barbara Baer I’d already missed two periods before I went to Planned Parenthood in Berkeley. I knew the result before a woman asked if I wanted counseling. She h […]

Rush Hour Angels by Rosanne Trost A few years ago, I was driving home from work, encountering typical rush hour traffic. At a red light, the car radio went dead. The light turned […]

Same River, Different Day by Patrick Meeds Let me tell you uncomfortable I am with silence. I am handcuffed to a joke I can’t tell. Two crows are where my lungs should be. My exhales are t […]

The Artful Constructs of Scott F. Smith by Russell Hart When photographer Scott Smith isn’t observing the world, he’s building one from scratch. Standing in his well-ordered studio at […]

Talking to Toads by Tutt Stapp-McKiernan My memories of the time when my parents and I lived in a renovated gristmill are of course dim—I had only been two when we moved there and four when w […]

Reckless Abandon by Dudley Stone …………………………………………………….A poem is never finished, only […]

Deconstructing Unicorns and Mermaids by Deborah M. Prum My four-year-old granddaughter, “Zoe”, lives out-of-state. We often meet via Zoom. She and I share a screen and explore her burning questions by […]

Lake George in My Heart by David Stern My wife and I sought sanctuary by the lake, our two sons in tow. The four-hour car trip was nonstop requests for candy, cookies, sodas laced with […]

Visitatio Divina by Sharon Perkins Ackerman It is just after 5:00 a.m. as I browse among the books that prop up my life. I say prop because books are so often a means of leaving my surroundings, […]

Shopping by Paul Joseph Enea My grocery store is under siege by sleepwalkers who show up in pajamas moping from shelf to shelf for a precious memory. There is no one to guide […]

Adrienne by Lisa Ben-Shoshan   She is a large woman. In another place or circumstance, she would have been the woman in the flowery housedress with fluffy mules on her feet. […]

Harvester by Ned Kraft   Once mown a tedder spreads the murdered crop to dry, draws a swath, a windrow waiting. Three days of drought and the hay is fit to […]