The Engineer
Boredom ricochets off the hard edge
of a freight train
carrying ethanol,
carrying the wanton thoughts of a man
gone too long without intimacy.
A secure living is a railroad job,
so you don’t u […]

I’ve published five books (three nonfiction and two fiction) and there’s so much I wish I would have known before publishing, that I now know through the long, hard road of experience. Whether you’re going the […]

“Social distancing during Covid means no hugs.”
—NBC News

It was neither part of a protest
nor a statement to the world.
I simply put my arms around
a tall oak and stood in embrace,
our bodies jux […]

He’s in one of my rooms. I pay attention to it now, because his window is closest to the nurses’ station and faces the automatic doors I push my cleaning cart through. I see him as soon as the doors bre […]

Our house, built in 1738, stood in the middle of twenty acres of corn field. The hand-fitted Pennsylvania blue-gray fieldstone walls were two feet thick. George Washington used it as an infirmary for his troops […]

I’ve had the honor of officiating many weddings over the past two decades. They’ve all been beautiful in their way, but more often than not the vows exchanged have been—naive, to say the least. I know min […]

Submissions for the annual Streetlight Magazine Poetry Award are open and I want to encourage participation from everyone, those new to our magazine as well as regular readers. The closing date for this […]

It was about 2:45 a.m., and Sherin George sat miserably on a ratty sofa in a cabin in rural Uttarakhand State in North India. She was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep, b […]

People have lost their minds.

Seriously.

They’re comparing masks to yellow stars and saying vaccine passports are signs of tyranny, refusing to comply as a sign of resistance.

Please.

My dog […]

I can’t tell if it’s a naturally recurring feature of my post-mastectomy slog, or just another variation of my chronic struggle to feel relevant. Four weeks out from surgery I stare at my screen and write sen […]

Art creation is an organic process for me, where inspiration takes the lead and my hands merely follow. The traditional media in my repertoire includes pen, colored pencil, and acrylic paint. I am also […]

Sneerwise, I’ve seen better
Dearborn, without the metal
I’d go on to abort you like any other paperweight hitchhiking across my belly
and just that fast
Grace Kelly has figured out the new mat […]

Do you constantly compare yourself to other writers?

Do you set goals for yourself as a writer and then somehow fall short of them every time?

Do you start new writing practices full of enthusiasm, but then […]

Aunt Maggie laughs with a Marlboro Red clamped between her lips. A metallic party hat sits atop her matted, white hair, fastened with a cheap elastic band under her turkey-wattle chin. Today s […]

This summer, I have performed two activities that strangely seem similar: shredding dozens of family documents and serving as a screener for a poetry manuscript contest.

Many of our older readers […]

I stared at the thick frosting of the cake, dotted with rainbow sprinkles, wondering if this would be what made him sick. I’d messed up the recipe, not realizing that “pasteurized egg whites” were diffe […]

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Void where […]