by Rose Mary Boehm I know I have to do some shedding. Can’t go into a long, enfeebling winter with the weight of oceans, moors, beaches, dark woods, and stark horizons. I suppose I ought to shed my lightweight roots and put down the other kind, sturdy and reliable, holding a tree that tries to rise…
by Rose Mary Boehm I know I have to do some shedding. Can’t go into a long, enfeebling winter with the weight of oceans, moors, beaches, dark woods, and stark horizons. I suppose I ought to shed my lightweight roots and put down the other kind, sturdy and reliable, holding a tree that tries to rise…
by Alex Stolis When I was sixteen, Dad almost sold the bar, I crushed on the buyer’s daughter: nineteen, blond, and way out of my league. I was gone-daddy-gone. She asked if I knew where we could score some kickin’ weed, and I made a joint appear from the inside pocket of my field…
by D.S. Stewart As the cancer worms through his body, Simon Weinberg prays the same prayer he’s made hundreds of times, kneeling, arms outstretched, staring upwards into space: “God, if you happen to be there, grant me the chance to explore your handiwork.” He figures he’s doing God a favor….
by Walker Watson You are the sun all flowers seek, Their aching stems bent toward your light— While I, unseen, stay small and weak, A shadow fading out of sight. You cradle beauty none can claim, And never turned to meet my gaze. My love, a ghost that whispers name, Haunts hollow rooms and wasted days. You cradle…
by Jason Bauer The lightbulbs in my kitchen look like little Liberty Bells. It took me 17 years and three hundred something days to see it, but they are. It kinda burns to look at them, but it feels good. It makes my vision distort a bit. Everything turns a…
by Matthew Johnson Son, I wish I could let you Have time off on your birthday, But you know, we even work on Christmas, So if the Son of God walked Into my office to request time off, I’d even tell him to go back to his desk And to continue working on his sources…
by Elizabeth Wischler Thomas Ray hadn’t touched the box since it arrived. It lived under his bed, where dust settled without judgment. He didn’t talk about the war, not in church, not over coffee. Not when his wife asked why he woke up gasping. The medal came three years late….
by Mark Crimmins Davis called him at the beginning of the month to tell him the bad news. “You’re not gonna like this any more than I do, Schultz, but Prez has decided we all need to ask a hundred golden questions a week from now on. I know the…
by Rowan Tate Fog slips its milk through the hinge of morning— that narrow hour when nothing has quite begun. Streetlights still lit, unnecessary, left propped up like hands raised after the question’s been answered. The kitchen kettle hisses its small argument. This hinge of…
by Dan Berick On Friday she will wrench you,unceremoniously, from the pink bedwhere you have spent your life in unobtrusive duty this half century or so. Your world ends with a brisk tug that I’ll only vaguely noticethanks to the doctor’s skill(and benzodiazepine).And then you’re gone forever. Next, the months of slow replacement:scattered…