My father dulled his surmise. He rang the register, count ‘em Greenback and copper upon the eye. Blue black fell on Harlem. He poured the day into olive canvas bag Pocketed the gun, flicked alarm switch Left the shop, turned key to drag His gloom, eyes hooded, pitch. He drove 125th Street to the bank Parked out front under the trestle. The bag chuted down night deposit, sank. He did it 30 years like a dog deaf to a whistle. Richard Oyama’s work has appeared in Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American … Continue reading The Book of Nights by Richard Oyama→
We are pilgrims in the earth and strangers— we come from afar and we are going far. –Vincent van Gogh Abroad for some time now following our family’s wishes without much success or happiness. I sense their exasperation, their disappointment growing— soon there will be no tolerance left, even for an eldest son. I prefer not to speak of it except to you, brother. I hold up a mirror to the deep things which pass through me, sometimes flickering, sometimes blazing, always indomitable— feeling no connection to these plans for me. This I freely admit. … Continue reading Abroad by Brent Short→
Tim Collyer is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight‘s 2025 Flash Fiction Contest Career Day smells of bleach and gravy. Wrong and familiar at once, like medicine in birthday cake. Margaret sits on a child’s blue chair, jaw still tender from yesterday’s biopsy. The scarf over her scalp isn’t a statement, just warm. Emma twists her book bag strap round and round, marking time with what they don’t discuss. A builder talks about bricks. A paramedic shows a stethoscope and every child leans forward. Margaret once wrote columns about the sound of crisp pastry giving way, about wine that tasted of … Continue reading The Taste of Copper Pennies by Tim Collyer Flash Fiction→
You’ve been using ChatGPT as a therapist a little too much lately. We joke about it on occasion—we’ve lovingly named him “Chad,” you share, chuckling as you do so just to make sure others know that you know it’s silly. Meaningless. Just an offshoot of the word “chat”—something you obviously didn’t put too much thought into, anyway. But every time you scroll past a post or reel poking fun at our bit-too-personal reliance on the AI bot, it scratches just a little deeper than you’d like. You’re not special, you realize. This isn’t hard-hitting. Nothing … Continue reading Boxes Left Unchecked by Presley Ackeret→
William Prindle has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2025 Poetry Contest The Orchardist’s Lament If I spent less time in unstructured circumspection and dreadful inference I might remember that circumference is nothing but pi times diameter and I might not have to rue the mismeasurements I make in fencing these apple trees from noisy birds and sneaky squirrels. I might not keep repeating what a dolt to myself as I continue to overlook my own advice and nurse my sore thumbs from recutting and rebending this eighteen-gauge wire, when all these years I could … Continue reading The Orchardist’s Lament by William Prindle→
Christine Wilcox is the 1st place winner of Streetlight‘s 2025 Flash Fiction Contest “I’m not doubting you,” the Angel said to the Demon. “But why can’t you just resubmit the application? Surely if she’s as bad as you claim—” “Look!” the Demon said. “She’s melting even more cheese on her pizza.” The Angel watched the woman drop a handful of shredded cheese into the air fryer, where she’d placed a leftover slice of pizza. “Hmm,” he said. “She’s taken care of her body otherwise, though.” He paged through the papers on his clipboard. “Is she lactose intolerant?” … Continue reading A Special Place in Hell by Christine Wilcox→
John Thelin has earned an Honorable Mention in Streetlight’s 2025 Poetry Contest Pennies from Heaven Soon they will stop minting pennies. I will miss their crusty copper ridges, Abe Lincoln in profile, a calming image as he stares into a future he could never imagine over 150 years ago. Time stretches, an elastic band, for a while, then snaps back on itself, leaves a welt on a wrist that tries to flick a fishing line perfectly into a pond on a lazy summer day that can cloud over while you doze, wake to a smell … Continue reading Pennies from Heaven by J. R. Thelin→
Rebecca Faulkner is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2025 Poetry Contest Father’s Day Mum says I have a new family now, matter-of-fact with the tea brewing. A half-sister who rides her shiny bike without training wheels, plush carpet hugs her staircase. Suppers in the car nights he drives me home, fish & chips steam the windows. My eyes vinegar-itch but I will not cry. Weekends he fails to fix the bird-feeder, spilling seed in my sandals while I jostle sparrows for crumbs. When he’s back I’ll make him read Charlotte’s Web, work busily like … Continue reading Father’s Day by Rebecca Faulkner→
Artist Barbara MacCallum claims androgyny as her creative terrain. “I’m interested in male and female, nothing too macho or too feminine but the gap in between,” she says. Her highly original, intimate and imaginative work combines sculpture, drawing, textiles and installation. Blending male and female elements, MacCallum’s works are graceful, mysterious, emotional, and challenging. “My work has evolved through a collaborative relationship with my husband (Robert Johnson) who is a physicist; I cast his body and recycle his published papers giving a new existence to the detritus of science,” she says.. Johnson is a professor … Continue reading Barbara MacCallum’s Androgynous Art→
Abby Murray is the 1st place winner of Streetlight’s 2025 Poetry Contest Of All the Qualities She Could Have Inherited She carries my penchant for flowers she hasn’t learned to identify as weeds. she brings me dandelions, red clover, morning glories, buttercups, even scotch broom, and I prop them up in a vodka bottle on the windowsill because she can’t believe her luck, how nobody fought to collect these beauties before she did, how she found them heaped on yard waste piles or reaching up from the cement or clay beneath utility poles and … Continue reading Of All the Qualities She Could Have Inherited by Abby Murray→
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