Atheist At seven I stopped believing in Santa after Mary Lou whispered to me betrayed by adults lured into an unreal world I stopped believing in the tooth fairy with her late night dimes, the Easter Bunny with jelly beans and pastel eggs and God But I am not a good atheist I slip into the back of Saint Anthony’s some Wednesdays at noon and sit in silence with the stained glass saints I read Simone Weil, longing for her unwavering faith if we ask our Father for bread he does not give us a … Continue reading Atheist and Not Now, Maybe Not Ever, 2 poems by Claire Rubin Scott→
Rigel Oliveri is the 1st place winner of Streetlight‘s 2023 Essay/Memoir Contest It was late on a Saturday night. My son, who had just turned nine, woke up screaming. He had localized abdominal pain on one side. I couldn’t even touch his tummy without provoking screams. Although just thinking about the cost of an ER visit made me feel sick, this seemed serious. I woke my six-year-old daughter up and told her we had to go. Like a trooper, she threw a few books and some markers into her pillowcase and tossed it over her … Continue reading Find the Difference by Rigel Oliveri→
Not too long ago, I was walking my black lab down Norwood Road when an acquaintance stopped his truck to chat. He said he was concerned about my neighborhood. Wasn’t I embarrassed for writers to come to the retreat and see all these ruined and abandoned houses here in Norwood? It’s a shame. It hurts him every time he passes through our hamlet, he said. He then announced that he was going to buy up as many of the forlorn houses as he could (he has the means) and renovate and turn them into Airbnbs. … Continue reading The Pleasure of Ruins by Trudy Hale→
Last night I called you. Moon sharp, I said, like an important message. Look up. The sky has opened its story and shined its shy star. It’s a pearl plucked from the deep. Look up before she hides before we forget the oyster, that we are surrounded by sea. Mary Christine Kane works in healthcare marketing and lives in Minneapolis, Minn. She holds an MFA from Hamline University. Mary’s poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Bluestem; Mutabilis Press; Plainsongs Magazine; The Buffalo Anthology, Right Here, Right Now; and others. Her … Continue reading Message by Mary Christine Kane→
The horizon line has long been a source of inspiration for landscape artist Susan Haley Northington. She remembers growing up in South Georgia where the open land led to the horizon line. “I remember being in love with the land. The vast flat land and open skies attracted me. Watching sunsets in amazement. The colors, the texture, the endlessness of it all. “I viewed that horizon line as mysterious but at the same time it offered peacefulness and calm, that balance I sought. As we get older we yearn for balance and … Continue reading Susan Northington Looks to the Horizon→
your father is dying on the other side of the world and yet, the moon shines into our bedroom my mother has broken her ankle and can’t walk the stairs and yet, the moon dances between clouds our daughter, plagued by night terrors, sweats in the sheets between us and yet, the moon fills our room with brightness our neighbor’s mosque was vandalized, dirty messages on the walls and yet, the moon glows over both vandals and vandalized tonight storms rage over violent seas, and fires burn across our hearts and yet, the moon holds … Continue reading and yet the moon by Nimisha Mondal→
Allison did not come to the decision to move in with Gregory lightly. She loved her little apartment, absolutely loved it. It was a source of immense pride and comfort. But she suspected that Gregory might be “the one,” and moving in together was the natural next step. They talked about The Big M only once, admittedly in a cursory fashion, but Gregory did not shy away from talking about the future. Gregory had been pushing the move for weeks. He hated trying to find parking near her building, hated that he had to … Continue reading Allison Moves In by Margie Shepherd→
During my older sister’s annual visit last fall, three shoe boxes came into the house with her luggage. After the usual greetings and settling in, she opened the Florsheim boxes to reveal a postcard collection. In an effort to clean out her Tennessee Victorian, a closet shelf having collapsed the week before, she decided she didn’t want them anymore: would I be interested in them? History is always a bit surprising, especially when close to one’s personal narrative. Imagine the archaeologist who digs up an artifact that totally alters the theory he has been working … Continue reading Writing History’s Happenstance by Fred Wilbur→
The pulpit floats high above the chairs. She cranes her neck to see, twists a little clockwise to hear. The priest’s suspended there for his flock. Which soil to avoid? Which rock? The Bible’s chained to the lectern, each page a work of art. Needles of heat. Through the window a cloudless sky the blue of Mary’s cloak, a furnace of crows relentless as her fears of hell, of dying alone, that her prayers court a God who needs no one. Elisabeth Murawski is the author of Heiress, Zorba’s Daughter, which won the May Swenson … Continue reading In a Chapel Near the Loire by Elisabeth Murawski→
Two 584-million-mile trips around the sun—the only traveling any of us could do. Two sets of birthdays and anniversaries and seasonal accoutrement. Innumerable sleepless nights. All spent in pandemic hibernation. In terror. On the brink of insanity. It’s fitting that they’d bring me back. Just like they always have. When the clarion call came, it rattled like a cruel tease. After one cancelled tour and another doomed returning-to-normal show amid countless are-we-there-yet moments, the prospect of real-life anything seemed out of reach. I wasn’t ready anyway, still subsumed by a pandemic-induced Stockholm syndrome. But as … Continue reading Return to Civilization by Elizabeth L. Delaney→
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