by Nina Schuyler I’m watching Woody Allen’s movie, The Purple Rose of Cairo, again. Tom Baxter has just stepped out of the film and waltzed right into the darkened, popcorn-infested theater. Picture gum under the seats, on the floor. Mia Farrow, who has been in a lovely trance watching Baxter…
by Cynthia Good Then it sparked into flame, Christmas in the fire pit, a burst three times the size when it stood in the den festooned in bows, the Fraser Fir— a shooting spiral of tangerine light. What should we burn next? you ask. Let’s burn…
by Ken Poyner You would never imagine how truly awkward this cape is. It is standard schlock for a superhero, so I use it. You would not expect a man who could deftly see through stone, deflect both dull lead and classy copper clad bullets, and bend-without-breaking riotous egg shells…
by Cynthia Good So long cell tower dish sneaking inthe bedroom window, so longto saying thank you to taxi doorsheld open to slide across sticky seats.So long to dragging our bodies into roomswhere we don’t want to go, into argumentsthat aren’t our own. So long to tryingnot to wake the…
by Khristy Knudtson The Midwest region of the United States garners a reputation that is unlike any other. Wisconsin, where I have lived all of my life, embodies airs of apologetic pleasantries in almost every interaction. This concept of “Midwestern nice” is a pervasive descriptor of the Midwestern people—it defines…
by Michelle Askin The building at night. My hand tracing the greyish-white veining of the brown marble. The door left ajarso that I inhale the cigarette ash, chlorine,and the soaked rum from the forgotten cakeon the chained metal mailboxes. Palm treesrowed to the elevator as if to say that within…
by Ed Davis The first time I caught a freight train, it felt as if I had learned how to fly. One minute I was anchored to the ground—feet in the gravel, backpack weighing me down—the next I was moving through space, transported not by wings but by tons of…
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…