by Tara Conrad For International Women’s Day, we celebrated the daily impact women have on our lives. This essay honors a loving mother who kept her heart open for the world no matter the challenge. When I was young, we struggled financially, often not having money to pay the bills…
by Jeffrey Kingman after Kerouac’s “On the Road” she went out in the mud to find a head between his knees the two foggy bundles wandered there together from the steps of the motel court alone mixing up their boys a prowl car came by possessions moved along self-propelled hunchbacks…
by Frank Jamison Y’all don’t know the whole story, and I can’t tell it all here. It’s too long. But Elbert Wiggins was killed in Hatchie Landing a long time ago. Two men, Malcolm Oakes and Bennie Hoskins, had something to do with it. My June’s husband, Nathan, died in…
by: Kathleen Zamboni McCormick I recall being a relatively happy child of the sixties, until we discovered I was “exceptional.” Testing occurred in third grade, and they said they’d never seen scores like mine. My parents were contacted and told I was outstanding, possibly a genius. Apparently, Father’s first reaction…
by: Elizabeth Primamore Chalks pulled the ‘72 Corolla into the faculty parking lot. Keys in his pocket, he hurried across the lot, waved to the patrol guard, walked up a few stairs, and went through the double brown doors of Harding in Kearny. He shook in his coat a little….
by: Janet Yoder You were named Molly when I met you. We loved the same man back then—Joe. I met Joe first when I entered college in 1969 at nearly 18. Joe and I were not lovers then. We were depressed together during that rainy winter in Tacoma, when the…
by: PT Russell Shrieking wails, carried by the churning wind above, deafens me as the darkness steals my sight. The ocean water is warm and murky. Its salty froth burns my nostrils and stings my eyes. I am surrounded by haunting voices inside and outside of my throbbing head. It’s…
by Isaiah Robinson Moonlight settled his features; its soft silvery light feigned the youth he once had. Resting on a straw-stuffed mattress, Faiben stretched out his hands before him. In the moonlight they bore no scars, no calluses, no crooked fingers. They were the hands of a simple man, a…
by Brian Reickert On an August afternoon, on the fringe of a riotous wildflower garden, I crouched to observe the mortal struggle of a tiny green spider and a yellow/black hornet on the chest of Saint Francis draped in plaster robes, arms outstretched as if to embrace the world in…
by Kerri Vasilakos Words turn diamonds in these volcanic bones. I wait for the eruption. My throat has been hollow for so long, that my blood began carving letters in my veins, bruising voice into my flesh. My body rebelled against my fear, took matters into its own hands, seduced…