When the Waters Rise or Storm Descends Each family will have gathered what is durable and light. How far will the little ones walk before they ask to be carried. What else will you set down. When are we going to be there. Even our grief will not put out the fire. There it is, burning, lighter and lighter, singing into a mouthful of air. Chicken By the third time I checked on her, she had no eyes, just two white sockets where they should have been. A pair of glossy beetles, oblong, paddled in … Continue reading When the Waters Rise or Storm Descends and Chicken, 2 poems by Michael Quattrone→
Fifteen years ago, I knew that moving to the Midwest would be a kind of culture shock. I knew it because I googled “Regional Food of Michigan” and the first thing that came up was “cereal.” But I didn’t know then what I know now, that Midwestern Nice was going to be the real shock. I always felt shy growing up on Long Island. Part of that shyness was that I was an outsider from the start. We started our lives as a family in Palo Alto, Calif., where I was born at Stanford University … Continue reading Culture Shock by Rachel Lutwick-Deaner→
The vermillion sun salts our mouths, warmth brimming with the sapor of brine. I write on my arm the torrid air a salve for wounds pleasure can make known again. Why is it important that we remember the metrics of marking time? All I ever am haunted by the naming of things, the finality of definition of anything being anything more than what is. Fascinated by turning toward, becoming haloed from a moving silhouette— I write nonsense, vague and unspecific defenses, keeping me from being known. Next to me, someone is talking (to me?) of … Continue reading Sure to Glisten by Ashley Taylor→
Mollypops, we called them, stomping with our small shoes, heaving them like baseballs, bursting them green against the barn wall. We were children, seeking to destroy, as children do, leaving the juice-encased seeds to rot, perhaps reseed the pasture’s edge. Now I watch them in the garden. They droop egg-like, ripen toward yellow, draping palmate leaves like mittened hands sheltering blossom and fruit. How frail the flowers perched atop the leaves, a few still blooming purple! Passiflora incarnate, naked as Botticelli’s Chloris in her flimsy veil. Style and stigma, anthers invite golden bee to … Continue reading Passionflowers by Joyce Compton Brown→
People will say it was suicide, but you mustn’t believe them. They’ll say I looked normal at first, a tall woman with long black hair in a gray, knee-length skirt. They’ll explain how I disappeared down the spur trail, into the woods, to the patch of dirt that dips into the Potomac River. When the newspapers announce my death, they’ll speculate that I desired to die. They’ll report that I ignored the “Swimming Prohibited” signs. The dog-walkers will confirm that they’d seen me on the C&O Canal path before, that my Golden Retriever … Continue reading Immersed by Caroline Kahlenberg→
I reach for a glass jar of sweet gherkins and notice the same unfamiliar woman is following me down another aisle in the grocery store. I wonder if it is a coincidence. My gut tells me otherwise. The wavy-haired woman is looking down at her phone. Moving toward her, I pretend to search for stone ground mustard. I am now close enough to see she is on social media. Startled I am so near, she stammers, “You, you, you look familiar.” I look at her and know I have never seen her before, unless I … Continue reading I Don’t Miss You When You’re Not With Me by Bridget Verhaaren→
Is it the nature of desire or the desire of nature to reveal how little we have evolved. Is it the few words of a person or a person of few words who commands our attention. Is it the history of violence or the violence of history that stirs our passion. Is it the loss of sadness or the sadness of loss that wakes the suddenness of joy. Is it the surprise of a gift or the gift of surprise that creates delight. Is it the loneness of a flower or the flower of aloneness … Continue reading What Claims Us by Diana Pinckney→
“I didn’t initially like abstract art,” admits artist Kathleen Markowitz, her vibrant paintings offering bursts of primary colors, suffused surfaces that suggest rather than depict nature and its mysterious forces. She remembers her early exposure to art and how, over time, her taste would evolve. “My aunt was a fine arts painter in New York City. As a young girl we spent much time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Velazquez was our favorite artist. One day we stumbled on a contemporary artists exhibit. I saw my first Pollock. It emotionally took me somewhere fresh … Continue reading The Art of Kathleen Markowitz→
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