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, but she forced herself to stay awake. She was waiting for a knock on the door. She was hoping to hear it soon. It would be much easier to proceed with the plan if it happened before her boyfriend came home. Earlier that night, around 9 p.m., Richie had left, after whining petulantly for a half … Continue reading Maan Singh Gabbar by Reeya Banerjee→
On the last day of the world the children laugh. How can they know? They pick up stones, pockmarked, flat, dap them through rising waters, their voices littered with glee. On the last day of the world no one cries. The neighbor pulls out her cello, plays Albinoni’s Adagio in G minor from the rooftop until the dark pulls its covers over the strings. We look out the window. Count to ten. Forget what ten means. The month of May. How to read a clock. Wouldn’t you want it like this? Oblivion nothing but sweetness … Continue reading Looking Ahead by Julia Chiapella→
FOR FRIENDS WHO LOST BOTH CHILDREN ………………….God is so omnipresent. . . that God is an angel in an angel, ………………….and a stone in a stone, and a straw in a straw. . . ………………………….— John Donne, Sermon VII If you wake at early light, rise, go out, look toward the waning moon, toward the twin stars balanced there. Stand barefoot on newly greening grass; know that weariness of earth, of care, courses through you only, not the stars. If you wake at early light, rise, go out, harken to the echoes of nursery rhymes … Continue reading For Friends Who Lost Both Children and Lingering Over Coffee, 2 poems by Kevin Norwood→
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 sentences, only to delete them seconds later. “I decided that if I let a boy get me pregnant, I would kill myself before I’d ever tell my parents. I would have too.” Hyperbole. Delete. “Later I learned that there were problems in the Evangelical Women’s Caucus. By 1987 it had split up into two groups, each better reflecting the … Continue reading Doubts About the Enterprise by Angela J. Latham→
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 math, I’m afraid and lordess, but you’re a strict equation Despite the munitions manifest under the crown of your abdication I just keep on loving you like caloric restriction and late-70s cocaine stretching myself out like St. Swithin’s Day across your salt lick whole oceans of Tawny Kitaen Ready for my Helen Reddy moment I’d sober up if I were you The … Continue reading MX-76 by Dana Miller→
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 she’s eighty, and while sitting in the shade of the big farm house, has overheard people say more than once they can’t believe she’s still “kicking”. They say it with astonishment, they say it with disdain. Somehow, she was forgiven by her siblings for selling the surrounding acreage, the family legacy, to a developer who put up McMansions with lightning speed. … Continue reading Pink Peonies by Alexis Kelleher→
you and I bedded down in the canyon the nine ply of heaven folded us in rain the next morning the firewood smoldered with dew as you bathed the stones in the springbed trembled like flowers seen through campsmoke then we parted like petalfall as the gibbous old man looked on still early without yet his companion our horses neighed as they turned away they too are old friends over this land of spines and cactus quills the sun and moon keep moving not finding anywhere a soft seat J.R. Forman’s work has appeared in … Continue reading Departing in McKittrick Canyon by J.R. Forman→
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 different from just regular eggs that you took the yolks out of. So, the buttercream frosting included a decent amount of raw eggs. I’d already spent every day since his birth worried he would get sick. Today, on his first birthday, I worried the cake would be the reason. When you’re born in a pandemic, death seems as likely as life. … Continue reading From One March to Another: My NICU Baby and the Pandemic Turned One by Jamie Farnsworth Finn→
*Certain conditions apply. Statement is not an indicator of future performance, nor does it constitute any promise, guarantee or warranty. Cannot be combined with other offers. Void where prohibited. Howard Algeo has been published in the online editions of Crack the Spine and Paper Darts. He is a home health care executive, currently serving as Director of Business Development and Training for Seniors Helping Seniors. Howard holds a BA from Temple University and an MBA from the University of Michigan. Also a stand-up comedian, Howard feels writing comedy and writing poetry are very similar: It’s … Continue reading I Love You* by Howard Algeo→
She was a day past presence, riding the jagged breath below the surface of consciousness, and I was running to make the next plane to Arkansas. My footsteps parted the ear-splitting everyday announcements on the static speaker of gate changes and baggage claim. I was running, gunning the rental car through the curved roads of the Ozarks, frantic for her to hear the familiar cadence of my voice. She was inside her last flickering, the holding place just beneath the skin papered over bone. Her skull was a half-empty wasp nest, a grave tempo of … Continue reading Husk by Ellis Elliott→
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