***Karen Foster is an Honorable Mention for Streetlight’s 2018 Essay/Memoir Contest*** We Girls sit close together in the backseat of the car: Mission Accomplished. The Presentation of Mary Academy semi-formal is tonight and I am “doubling” with my friend, Maureen (a.k.a. “Mo”) and her steady boyfriend, Joe. A doll-sized study in organization, she has mapped out routes, timetables, and assignments over the past weeks with the efficiency of an executive level manager. Mo’s huge eyes and long lashes are framed by sharply penciled eyebrows that travel to the edge of her face. Joe’s large … Continue reading The Blue Dress by Karen Foster →
Partial Obstruction Four Frenchmen in a Fiat fractured the front of a frieze facing Florence Cathedral. Stupid consonant clusters crowding each other, bragging like teens and gawking like tourists perennially popping pictures. See what I mean! And now two Turkish tourists plow into a Pagini parked parallel to Saint Peter’s Basillaca. There they go again! What will it take to stop them! Fortunately, a shop owner ushers everyone inside and serves cappuccino, offering a selection of mostacciolis, struffolis, baci di damas and ossi dei morti biscottis. Suddenly, everyone speaks Italian and sits on the … Continue reading Partial Obstruction by John Cullen →
Podcast: A man’s loss of a role in his bowling group means more to him than even he realizes.
Read the story online: Keeping Score by Lawrence Farrar
The Interloper Night is an interrogative. The owl’s questions float in the glen where shadows voiced by the articulate moon stilt their own ground, measure the trees for graves. The back of the interrogatory toad bunched in field grass fouls with its scrawled lozengy my push for ornament, my desire to align. Leaves in conclaves ask what will I do in life after goodbyeing twilight and joining their elopement. I lie in new milkweed troweling out of zigzagged straw. The butterflies and blooms aren’t back yet nor are my hands stained from opened pods, … Continue reading The Interloper by Bob Elmendorf →
Remain calm. You have purchased the crème de la crème of packages; don’t squander the experience with a panic attack. So bridges make you sweat. So you chew three Xanax every time you board a plane. So you refuse to open your eyes at the top of the Empire State Building, so so so…Think of the hospital beds and the tubes and the shots you will not have. Think of the chemo and the surgeries and the lopped off body parts you’re not trading for a few extra months. You’ve made your decision, so take … Continue reading Tips and Guidelines for Becoming a Shooting Star by Ashley Morrow Hermsmeier →
Twisting. Turning. Twirling. Swirling. Slipping. Sliding. Gliding. Falling. Soaring. Flying free. The magic of carnival rides, animals and the whistle of a circus calliope are evoked like silver dollar memories by multimedia artist Benjamin Frey. “I wanted to do a series of works showing movement and energy. Carnivals are an area of intense energy and a lot of movement. “For us, the carnival is a place of mystery, wonder and a little bit of darkness. In the contemporary world, the carnival is the last place where super human, herculean acts and extraordinary things are … Continue reading Imagination in Motion: The Art of Benjamin Frey →
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