Spring. Finally. After several snowstorms, ice, and being stuck in the house for days on end, Louise couldn’t wait to get in her yard. The daffodils had bloomed, the forsythia had appeared on stage and the February camellias were still struggling with their winter memories. There was plenty of work to do: mulching, feeding, cleaning up windblown trash, picking up sticks, planting grass seed, trimming bushes, pulling her pots out; she was so glad she had her yardman Buddy to help, insofar as her husband Robert wasn’t much help. The garden, other than family and … Continue reading So Be It by Tyler Scott→
I danced with a shadow, drifting in the wind, Our forms in ev’ry city window cast. We held each other as the night slipped past, Circled and spun in a chanted keen. I stared into you, where sorrow yields, Those hollow eyes where moonlight softly dives. Your touch slipped through my fingers–five to five– Like wind brushing through a silent mill. Why can’t I see your face, your countenance? Do you take root within my dripping misery, From mem’ries flooding beneath the city, Or are you but a flash of Renaissance? Should I still hold … Continue reading Dancing with a Shadow by Zihan Zang→
There were some signs, of course, that the world was ending. Sitting in the nurses’ station I sipped instant coffee, listening to a float nurse offhandedly mention that the winds would be kicking up later that day. I looked out the window. It was summer, the wind would be a welcome change. The next morning was dark. Waking up at 5 a.m., I wasn’t surprised. I bundled up my child to take her to daycare. I needed to get back to the hospital for my shift by 6 a.m. The sky remained dark. I dropped … Continue reading A Very Ordinary Day by MJE Clubb→
Buffalo Alice stuck her pig husband in the throat with a carpet knife. Made the evening news. Hell of a lady if you ask me, but I don’t get jury summons. It’s break-neck around here. Not enough hours in the day to earn. People pinched by landlords, business pricks, government mules. When nothing’s left to say, there’s violence– blood stains, lead paint chips, hepatitis. My last tetanus shot was fifteen years ago. It was white tail season, farmer Fred caught me lying prone in one of his hedgerows. Had my old man’s 12 gauge slug … Continue reading Concrete Staircase by Jeff Thomas→
we imagine she was a bride the skeleton with the small skull a Greek girl………… ……….her head wreathed in ceramic flowers in Azerbaijan……………… ….800 BC a couple was buried where they fell asphyxiated……………. ……by toxic gas their bones circled around each other 700 years ago two people in England were buried their bodies dusted……………. ……with pollen we hope it was … Continue reading Currency by Maureen Clark→
Cottonwood trees are producing more fluff. I am jealous of things so aptly named. The verb take can be a phrasal verb with so many meanings: take off, take up, take in, take away. If I had a name it would be the sound of a bird making its nest in the empty gutter. It would be the sound of wings flitting over roofs, a thirst without forecast, a number so vast it doesn’t need to be counted. How about a name so simple you forget it ever meant something? A name that takes nothing … Continue reading Names by Esther Sadoff→
The sixty-year-old woman is sleeping at the moment, so I sit on a worn brown couch in the family waiting room down the hall from Shirley. It’s not too far from the intensive care ward where she lays on the white, white sheets, connected in too many ways to the machines that keep her alive or that measure whether she is, or is not. This windowless refuge gives no hints about day or night, winter or summer. Two half-done jigsaw puzzles await completion on small tables. There is a television, but it isn’t on. Shelves … Continue reading By Shirley’s Side by Peter Wallace→
“I’m always having a conversation with myself between art and craft. Art is for the heart and craft for the wallet,” says fine artist and fine craftsman Alan Box Levine in his studio at the McGuffey Art Center In Charlottesville, Va. “Art is a window to the world. It has nothing to do with money. I also restore old things—windows, tables, chairs, book cases—for a living.” Levine’s compact studio displays the makings of his varied talents. Displayed are wooden benches, boxes of all sizes, dried flowers, toys, vintage family photographs. An antique ladder back chair … Continue reading Fine Art and Craftsman Alan Box Levine→
I missed my son’s voice this Christmas. Of all of us, Steven’s voice was the deepest. And that includes all the voices of our best-entire-family friends, the Eisenheims. Bruce (Steven’s dad) and the Eisenheim men (there are three) are all over six feet tall (just like Steven), but even so. In a room completely filled with Eisenheims and Trvaliks, you could still pick out Steven’s voice from the crowd. That’s how deep it was. Deep and resonant. Even his laugh was deep. He laughed a lot. That’s when I noticed it, actually. Christmas week, on … Continue reading The Second Christmas by Mary Trvalik→
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