Being Me
 
The Trip across Texas is mine.
Well, it’s in my name.
The bank picks up the tab,
I grab the fantasy:
he practices my autograph
in a cheap motel like a kid
does Mickey Mantle’s.
His girl […]

Accidental
 
Stowaway from Singapore,
no papers or passport,
surname unknown,

Short-tailed Babbler, Japanese White-eye,
Orange-bellied Flowerpecker,

whoever you are, passing passerine,
drawn to perch […]

Lover’s Quarrel
 
1

Because you cling like cigarette smoke, thin and acrid, in the brim of my hat, as if
you know God lives on the addiction of our breath.

2

When the shadows finish wallpapering the […]

As Streetlight gets ready to go into our second year, it’s my sad duty to bid farewell to one of our editors and my glad duty to introduce two new editors.

George Kamide, who has been on the staff since we […]

Streetlight Magazine is going global. We are now pleased to be receiving readers and art submissions from abroad. Among them, are artists Fabio Sassi of Bologna, Italy and Eleanor Leonne Bennett of Manc […]

Hello,

I am currently under threat of hurricane, and electrical power/internet access could be cut at any moment, so I will be brief: I recently attempted to write a short story in the form of the narrating […]

This year, Poetry Magazine has been celebrating its one-hundredth birthday. It’s not unheard of for a magazine to last a hundred years, even in this country where things get old fast, but it’s still unusual e […]

Everett’s mother sobbed loudly as he stepped onto his front porch and let the storm door crash against the house. He had to get out of that house, though. It was all full of church people and casseroles. The n […]

Streetlight’s third issue features the work of Charlottesville painter Cynthia Burke and photographer John Grant. They talk here about the progression and process of their work.
Cynthia Burke
SL: Cynthia Burke, […]

Voices
 
I would be sitting there idly twirling
the strawberry perched on top
of the plump red pincushion
while she was hunched over the singer

filigreed foot pedal
making rhythmical clicking sounds
as […]

Katie on Fire
 
Sunset and silence,
chocolate bars and coffee—
Katie fingers rifle shells after dinner,
stacked in rows and flicked
the way a child does dominoes.
These mountains have a way
of messing wi […]

Woman at the Post Office
 
An old woman’s trouble in deciding
is holding up the line.
Another crowd, another time,
a loudmouth might complain,
but here in mid-morning, the retired,
mothers, students, all st […]

Optional Yoga at Sunrise
 
We’re told to drop into each breath then release the air
like wind in the trees.

Outside, a windmill slices light. The murmuring pines
are all piñons. The desert flows into the […]

“The Art of the 15th and 16th centuries is a gold mine of inspiration for me as well as the lithographs of the early Naturalists. I am also drawn to textiles and often have backgrounds r […]

“In my photographic work I seek to distill and dramatize natural elements, transforming them into symbolic metaphor. I embrace the often clichéd or sentimental botanical port […]

Letter to the Body
 
If only you were the pure self,
we would not have to bargain or pray,
offer up good deeds for relief of pain, or
apologies for spasms and expectorations.
The cells could absorb and […]

In August, Charlottesville author Jane Barnes published her third book, Falling in Love with Joseph Smith: My Search for the Real Prophet. She has written for films and publication and has two novels: I, K […]

Just about the worst thing a book jacket designer can do is, in my opinion, depict any of the characters on the cover. It seems almost a cruel thing to do, like he’s stealing imaginative power from the reader […]

I recently took a short trip to the beach to escape “buzz.” Do you know that sensation I’m referring to? Not the hum of a summer fly trapped in your kitchen, more like a ubiquitous sensory and informational showe […]

Who knows what people will do in the dark.

After several days of lights flicking off and on this summer, I was somehow reminded of the cigar boxes long stored on the laundry room shelf. I’d collected t […]