by Cathy Krizik Keandra placed her napkin in her lap. “Can we pray?” Oh shit. Lunch was supposed to be soup and salad. Not this. I clenched my teeth and dropped my knife, the clang reverberating like a spade hitting rock. Here? Now? Really? “Pray—right. Yes, of course.” Keandra and…
by Michelle Huston I have no memory of the first time I got my period. I can barely remember getting it this past week, although the gnawing feeling inside my uterus reminds me that it did indeed arrive on Wednesday. I do, however, remember when I first learned that a…
by Allyson Lewis How do I start again? That’s the question I kept asking myself. I had written a book, and like many others, my family and friends loved it. Toward completion of the book, I had readers begging me for the next chapter. Frankly, it was a five-year process,…
by Tracey Loscar The porch is a magical place. It is far and away the best feature of this house. Small and screened in on three sides, it is cool in the morning and fully lit in the afternoon sun. This was by design, as my grandmother loved to read…
by Naomi Ruth Lowinsky We’re in the dark again, on uneven ground, where only shadows know the way. Your breath is my compass; your hand is the North Star. What have we stumbled into? Stag’s skull crowns a tent of bones. We are to sleep here. Remember the stag in…
by Tracey Loscar The air remains heavy and hot, despite the fact that the sun has long since disappeared. Summer nights in the south aren’t so much a cooling off as a kicking off of the heavier blanket, where the sheet gets left on, keeping some of the air trapped….
By Naomi Ruth Lowinsky “I’m a green-and-yellow basket case,” you tell me, shuffling from bathroom to bedroom and back. We lean on each other, laughing. The basket weaver of the stars sent you to me, my green man, my pollen, my salmon leaping upriver. A tisket, a tasket, we’re in…
by Mary Scanlan I shuffled into my home office with solemnity and in silence, coffee in hand and ready to start my morning ritual before the day’s noises began. It was a relatively mild November morning in 2014. The sun was struggling to rise, as was I. After a brief…
by Timothy Caldwell Lightning strikes in the distance. He begins counting, “One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four…” Thunder arrives. “The storm is four miles away, Grandpa. That’s what Daddy taught me,” he says. “That’s right,” I say, as the clouds suck more afternoon sunlight…
by Betsy Burr Sometimes in life you get a reputation—good or bad—for something you didn’t do. Jacky Dunford snatched my scooter right out from under my nose and sped off across the street. Enraged by this breach of neighborhood etiquette, my five-year-old self took off after him on my tricycle,…