by Virginia Winters-Troche I last autumn i was watching the leaves fall and i was thinking if leaves could do it so could i, so i decided to fall in love give myself away like the sun, I could make someone less lonely even if that someone wasn’t me, thinking…
by Gil Hoy Their homes, cone-shaped wooden poles covered with buffalo hides. Set up to break down quickly to move to a safer place. She sits inside of one of them, adorning her dresses, her family’s shirts, with beads and quills. Watches over her children, skins cuts and cooks the…
by Jane Flint The camps are full of pick-up campers and those who come to pick. Brand new packing shed next door: old tomato crates stacked against the fence, long green machine still squeaky-clean. The women wash the clothes the food the children. The men play dice against the wall,…
by Keryna Stutts Her hands were a blue-green map of work and tears of Sunday dinners of scrap quilts. She held the world when his pain became too much. Cracked then filled with weariness. Her hands became my world of fried pies after school, a cool softness on my brow….
by Angela LeBlanc Jaspreet and Birpartap sit in my classroom hands folded, lilted handwriting sings on paper Birpartap looks the businessman part no turban, but nearly cried when he lost his glasses on his birthday Jaspreet is embarrassed to heat up her food spiced and loud She stood, shaking as…
by Keryna Stutts no one ever knew the things that happened when the doors closed when school would end and home was the only place to go in those days the afternoon was scarier than the dark
by Angela LeBlanc The wind whistles hot against the dry red rock, lashing through dry leaves that cling. Words— gasping for life, suffocated and trapped. Talons scrape the clouded horizon: pinks invade yellows, slash purples. Desperate for distance—flight. Running, breathless and terrified from the truth. Arid color splashed across the…
by Keryna Stutts Barefoot, leaning over the counter she painted on her lipstick. She never wore shoes unless she was going out. The bottoms of her feet stained black, she could run across gravel as if it were carpet. Lips pursed carefully around a menthol, so as not to smudge…
by Michael Sandler 1. How the past buttresses remorse, as if today’s missteps fit old indentations that zig then zag from one ancient beacon to another. Like you I feel pulled apart by each, unsure which will prevail as if both flew my banner, leaving me to soldier on my…
by Michael Sandler Call it fierce appetite for gadgets, strawberry huller, a lobster pick good for fishing out olives. Lives imbue my favorite, cracking walnuts in a pinch, juicing lemons— but mostly for exuding garlic. Mom’s joke: a real chef would cook his goose with one. She used to clear…