Our touring barge plows south through Mekong waters soon to arrive in the Delta. It’s been years, yet the names of these places are still familiar. Glossary of napalm and agent orange, of families fleeing, of death. I stand on deck and see a peaceful land, little battered boats, hut homes, rice-carrying hoys, their painted eyes alert for evil spirits. Everywhere in the brown current, islands of hyacinths float — invasive spread of jade leaves, plum blooms and unseen roots that hang in the water and thrive. Close by a flat boat drifts, nets piled … Continue reading Unseen Roots by Martha Snell→
Another Medicare commercial came on TV. It was getting to be time for bed. Brad knew that if he didn’t turn off the television and get out of his recliner it would be midnight again before he got under the covers with Julia. He could have been in bed by now if he had gotten a wink and a smile from her as she went up to bed, but she gave no hints there would be romance. That part of their relationship was trending downward. They still got along fine, but more like … Continue reading He Died In Her Sleep Peter Wallace→
I don’t blame my body for its language, for keeping its sacredness secure with words, its spleen tagging towards holiness and eternity, since I don’t seem to understand its nature, or why it mistakes my joys for sorrow, my pains for happiness, my tedium for freedom. I have kept the momentum of my dreams, but my body betrays me each time I reach out to have a sensible conversation about our future. It’s not too hard to make up with your enemies, except that sometimes they open the wounds from which you struggled to escape … Continue reading The Language of My Body by Chibuike Ukah→
I, who have never known love like this for my kinfolk in a burning world I’m tired of loneliness rewiring this brain, tired of wasting time waiting for the skies to clear, waiting for a turn, waiting for the urge to pass. Here, let me share this bread I baked, this salt, this god only a body can understand, I love you, here is a cup of tea, your coffee with maple syrup, the way you like it I love you, I made you soup, hungry for a kind of closeness like wilderness of hair … Continue reading This year is forecast four winters and I can’t save the burning world by Andreea Ceplinschi→
…………. ………To commemorate the victims of the Khmer Rouge we faced a large number of classrooms the bird outside faced the trees, unvoiced. the winter’s soldier burns the classroom changing our dream into a brimstone lake. the bird still like stone, still watching blood on her face. she wears the blade of clothes. the bird lives here, dozing, but full of blood sense in its eyes. we, trapped here. once the classroom, the way turns to Pol … Continue reading The Bird Lives Here to Wait by Yucheng Tao→
Wendy Fontaine is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight‘s 2026 Essay/Memoir Contest I need to find my winter boots My daughter is home from college on her freshman spring break, and she wants to wear them to a swim meet. She’s here for such a short time and anxious to see old friends and teammates from her high school swimming years, despite the lousy weather. Three straight days of precipitation, flooding and wind. An atmospheric river, they say, creeping in from the Pacific. Just this morning, as she lay sprawled in her bed, I ran errands through … Continue reading Lost Boots by Wendy Fontaine→
“What’s wrong with pear trees?” I ask, wondering if my dad is getting senile. “Well, they’re an invasive species. They’re not allowed to sell them in nurseries here anymore. They’re very spreadable because of their seeds. The ones in this subdivision are cultivated so they don’t have the thorns, but once the birds start getting to them, and they, you know, do what birds do, the ones that turn up in the wild have the thorns and then they take over everything around them. It’s the monoculture. If you plant only one kind of tree, … Continue reading Foie Gras by Nathan Cover→
A friend once drove out of town so fast he didn’t know if he was headed north or south. He just wanted to make the coast and finally learn how to swim. But that wasn’t true. I knew it was his boyfriend, the metal whip of his tongue that drove him to walk that bridge each night—inevitable as Persephone come September. One night after the bridge whiskey, he asked me to hit him and I should have said no. He said he needed a pain that would come and go like wildflowers in the high … Continue reading Not Unlike Damon and Pythias by Zachary Lundgren→
I don’t want to be eaten by a grizzly, my dad would say every time we were camping. But I wouldn’t want to be here if it weren’t possible. I’m sitting outside, daydreaming, when up the sidewalk strolls my neighbor, his torpid eyes fastened like buttons, his mouth a bloodless sphincter of puckered sanctimony. No matter what we talk about, he somehow finds a way to bring up my father, to remind me that he knew him sixty years ago when they were just boys. I don’t bother reminding him that I’ve always known my … Continue reading Bloodless by Martin Vest→
He perches boldlyon the old phone wiredown Canning Factory Road. He sings killy killy killya violent tune for a falconpainted in colbalt and rust. Sir Toby once disparaged the stanielas an inferior sparrowhawk. Yet here,head down, the wind-hover enchants his prey. Voles scamper into the marsh grass.Young hares cower.I admire his beauty, murder be damned. Marjorie Gowdy writes and paints on her farm at the foot of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Over a long career, she has written essays, poems, short stories, and is working on a historical novel. She … Continue reading The Kestrel Blues by Marjorie Gowdy→
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