by Brigitte Brkic Michelle shrugged off an impulse to flee as her eyes traveled up the long escalator, its end curving out of sight. Adjusting the diaper bag on her shoulder and hanging the curved handles of the umbrella stroller over her right forearm, she hoisted two-year-old Nicholas onto her…
by Amy Southard I know when Autumn arrives, Usually early September here. The corn in my garden is ready for harvest, The silks turning brown. The pumpkins are beginning To turn more orange than green. Leaves are turning yellow, orange and red, Falling to the ground and crunching, As playful…
by Ann Hosler Water trailed down the window in rivulets, tracing the contours of my ghosted face. You wished me a happy birthday, nestled in sterile sheets of your hospital bed. Freshly woken from the coma of your surgery, you couldn’t remember my name. The surgeon removed a basketball-sized spleen…
by Lauren Leigh Powell I don’t know why my father hated dandelions so much. My Aunt Edna told me once that it was a “man thing.” That somehow all men, when they are the steward of their own yard, become convinced that the bright sprinkling of yellow is a punishment…
by Jeffery Williams Somewhere in the distance, there resonates familiar THUMP BUMP noises of clumsy little feet. In a bedroom, down a hall, in the kitchen, down the stairs, above my head, in my head, somewhere there is enthusiasm and mischief stirring. Here at the very bottom floor, surrounded by…
by The Poet Darkling Today was one of those days; one of those days when you realize you shouldn’t’ve waited; you shouldn’t wait; when you discover places people call “Climax;” “Crapstone;” “Cut and Shoot;” “‘Possum Kingdom;” “Rest and Be Thankful;” when you learn these places could quite possibly be flooded…or that they might be heavenly oaseshaving never known disaster,and you might neverhave knownor caredeitherway,but…
by Gil Hoy Last night I dreamed the workers painting my house Brought all of their children to work in the morning With brushes and buckets of water, to wash and to clean To scrub the faces, like paintings on canvas, that had appeared overnight on the walls of my…
by John Timothy Robinson The elegance of light through sconce-dust glass with swirled, transparent fingerprints in grooves is not as pleasing when the chill sweeps past, this image, so cliché, yet still as true. Six tiny candles flicker in darkness as frozen rain hammers tree-limbs to the ground. They said…
by Amy Covel I think we all look back fondly At how naïve we were Starting that very first job. We think: “I look nothing like that ID badge I wear on my shoulder.” And it isn’t even just because You now wear your hair differently Or because you got…
by Gonzalinho da Costa On the photo of Jennelyn Olaires grieving over her husband, Michael Siaron, published in The New York Times (August 3, 2016) He is the poor man unjustly executed by the state. She is the desolate woman of inconsolable loss. He dies sputtering in the darkness of…