By Loren Mayshark A blustery, white January day on Dutch Hollow Road in western New York. I was a benchwarmer freshman on the junior varsity basketball team in a school with about two hundred students. This meant the team was composed of both freshman and sophomore players, and I’d had…
By Mary Warren Foulk One weary pandemic day I found myself returning to Mark Doty’s Still Life with Oysters and Lemon. During my second semester at Vermont College of Fine Arts, my faculty advisor urged me to read it, and within the first few pages, I understood why. I was…
By Phibby Venable All my mother’s words live around here,and I am always placing them in whatever orderI can remember.They hold the door open each morning, and suggestI have a better gratitude and attitude,for being aliveI stretch my eyes all over the sky, I lean upand look over the mountainsMy…
By William Reeves It was always about the eighty-eight black and white keys, the foot pedals, the rhythm, the synchronicity between the left hand bass clef and the right hand treble clef notes. It was about the chords, the sharps, flats, naturals and the time signatures. It was never about…
By Kristal Peace (This poem contains domestic abuse.) My mother holdsMy hand as we navigateThe city’s streets during rush hour,The song of sirens escorting us home.She holds the grocery bagThat yanks her toward dinner. She holdsThe sharp words my fatherFlings at her when she thinksThe day is going well. She…
By Pamela Kaye (This piece first appeared in the online publication MixedMag.) My wife and I finally settled into a financially and physically secure retirement. Two years ago, we bought our forever home, unpacked boxes that had been in storage, and eased into the next chapter of life; for me,…
By Phibby Venable A wolf runs through my mind.I wake up to a compliant dreamon the nightstand,the moon in my eyes,an accumulation of pennies and dimes,a restless spider with worn webbing.A wolf is living in my small understanding,loose boned and lopinghigher up to howl.It is a cautious summer.Outside is a…
By Kevin Mc Dermott ‘John’s the boss now,’ your father said. And that was the end of it. John, the prodigal, home after years on the buildings in London. John, who didn’t know his arse from his elbow. Twelve years putting your heart and soul into the fucking place, twelve…
By Joan Mazza Track down the half-life of radioisotopesand you’ll find Uranium at 4.5 billion years,Carbon 14 at 5,730 years. Caffeine a mere five to six hours. Meds have half-lives, too—the time they take to degrade to half strengthwhen you’ll need to take another dose. What about marriages and friendships,…
By Roberta Schine When I was a junior at Central High School, Mike Ventura invited me to Cornell University’s homecoming weekend. We had gone out a few times when he was still in Bridgeport. Once, he took me to Beardsley Park Zoo. Another time we sat in the Merritt Canteen…