By John Grey The job’s not done yet.The fields must be burnt clear. No patting sweaty backsas the last truck rolls down the roadway.Harvest is not the end. So, in the last of sun,the wicks are lit.The sky glows sparkling grayas flame moves inon slithering snakes, scurrying rats,crackling stalks and…
By Jim De Marse I walked in the back door and smelled pot roast in the oven with gravy, peas, butter, and rolls on the side. Mom was making the gravy in a saucepan. I said hi, took off my jacket, and hung it on one of the hooks above…
By David James Driving through North Hollywood, a few months shy of a legal beer, a glance in the rearview mirror suggested a mop of hair more ragged than normal. As thoughts of a haircut began to register, a storefront advertising unisex hairstyling appeared, and right in front of its…
By Gwendolyn Jensen Some say that fall is death or death imagined.And it is true that color announces both,Whether painted on the leaf or skin,Whether red or gold or pale clay. Grandfather’s picture was painted in his autumnGarden, in his dark green garden chair,The leg rest up, his legs stretched out to whereThe rotogravure is spread all around…
By Caitlin Eha I drove to the park todayThe old one just down the roadFrom the house where I’ve always livedOne step out of my car becameA step back through time. I wandered the old pathsWhile children raced past meScrambling up the slides in wild abandonSearching for the monkey bars…
By Alan Gartenhaus The thud sent me racing to look out windows closed tightly against frosty north winds. Abandoning my homework, I bolted into the evening’s dark without stopping for a coat. Tire tracks in a fresh dusting of snow led to a car smashed against an oak tree on…
By Michelle Guevara
By Jenn Bouchard I hadn’t thought about my ex-girlfriend in years. Now Clara – or Cee, as I called her – was sitting across from me at Cannonball, my restaurant in the River North neighborhood of Chicago. She was there because I had totally messed up her life about two…
by J D Francis Woodrow Franklin sat resting, slowly pushing back and forth on an old, wooden bench swing that hung from a rusty chain on the front porch of the tiny cottage. It is where he has lived for thirty-seven years, alone. The bench squeaked and moaned with every…
by Lisa L. Lynn In Derrick’s younger years as a baker, women and pastry were somehow all of the same dreamlike confection, heady with sugar, alternately cloying and sublime. They were so indelibly coupled that he had often tasted women as rich layers of butter and salt, almond and fruit,…