I have always thought that John Donne’s metaphor of the drawing compass in “Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” one of the most ingenious in English poetry. Not simply about two lovers parting, it descr […]

He looked small, curled up on her couch
this handsome boy/man
not looking at her
picking his fingernails
jiggling his foot
a whisper of a beard on his face
he was silent
she waited
he cleared his […]

I’ve noticed that when I get together with friends, we never ask each other, “Did you see [fill in the title of a television program that recently aired]?” as those of my generation once might have. Rather, the […]

Bukowski talked about it, the one he threw
through the window each drunken night
and it still played, a radio indestructible
with songs that couldn’t help but bead
against my forehead. I think of Jo […]

I’d met three of the Partons: Randy and Stella at a festival in Georgia when I was a kid and Dolly at a concert, where I snagged backstage passes from a friend who knew one of the backup singers. I recalled my p […]

The garden bridge, a subtle arc
that gathers to its bend
the mossy stones of either bank,
and to the water lends

a stagnant symmetry: the dark
tunnel above, the sky
afloat below. A tranquil […]

Robert Schultz is the 1st place winner of Streetlight’s 2021 Art Contest

Robert Schultz considers himself a fortunate man. A retired Roanoke College English professor, he still follows his daily work […]

Swimming Again to Meet You,
along some enclosed lane where I pass you
swimming in the other direction.

Decades, I swam into changing light
that guided me to temporary rest—

So I begin again—

the lon […]

The first place winner of Streetlight’s art contest is Robert Schultz of Salem, Va. Schultz’s work, Specimens of the Plague Year, documents a year in the pandemic with his thoughts, quotes from scho […]

We met the ram yesterday. The one we were warned about but had forgotten was loose in the world.

After the biblical rains, the world felt charged as if pages in time had fallen open. With gaps just w […]

In school we learn to lie down
in the face of Evil from the skies.
“Take cover,” the first commandment
during air-raid drills as we duck
under our desks, then “All clear.”
No one dares to say t […]

Here are things that I have done to avoid writing: chase my recalcitrant dog around the house for an entire afternoon trying to clip his nails, read all the comments on an article I wasn’t even that […]

Nancy Ludmerer is the 3rd place winner in Streetlight’s 2021 Flash Fiction Contest

Before the pandemic, the desk had been his province exclusively since only he worked from home, but in their forced […]

Hi, this is my poem.
Hi, this is my poverty.
What’s that?
My poverty.
The poem and my poverty shake hands.
Everyone ignores my trauma.
I go over to my trauma,
start talking to it.
It tells m […]

Sarah and Anna by Emily Littlewood My sister and I have always loved each other, but we really didn’t like each other until I moved out of the house. During a few of the rare o […]

Richard D. Key is the 2nd place winner in Streetlight’s 2021 Flash Fiction Contest

In this episode of PTGTTS I’ll be talking about Earth, a little planet out at the edge of the galaxy, not to be c […]

It was a shower and gone
quickly. The sky was
only gray a short time.
It reminded me of a gray
fox that I spotted in the
city when I went to buy
two pizza slices, the
unseen people that […]

I heard him say it
dozens of times,
but the first time I said it
I laughed out loud.
Dad never had
two extra nickels to rub together—
my parents the king and queen of getting by—
and, get by the […]

Marjory Ruderman is the 1st place winner in Streetlight’s 2021 Flash Fiction Contest

Phoebe was busier than ever, juggling depression and a midlife crisis. She dreamt of favorable circumstances […]

It is well into night, and she moves slowly. Her sword pierces the water that slides away like sheets of ice. Bubbles spin into small vortices that carry her forward. She pushes the water, and the water pushes […]