by Robert Sumner From an elevated lifeguard chair, Kip watches dozens of swimmers frolic in the community pool. A pair of mirrored sunglasses rests on his nose just above a smear of white sun block. Juneau hangs out below, leaning on the long metal poles that elevate Kip’s chair. “Did…
by Mary E. Kendig Mothers aren’t perfect — not by far. Some can be stern and uncaring — even “unpresent,” while some are so loving they smother you until you can’t breathe, Or praise you until you start to believe you’re completely and utterly perfect in every way, like she…
by Cari Dow The marching band, dressed in orange and black thick polyester uniforms, pranced by, playing the school’s fight song. Royal Kaufman felt the sweat from the hot July evening clinging to the top of her head. The shiny red firetrucks rolled down the main street blowing their sirens…
by Michael H. Brownstein 1. The door in the wall led to an inner sanctum and the path through the garden to a paved road narrow and bent, through and over. We took it, step by step, against ancient brownstone, gray brick and rock, until the house we never lived…
by Joseph V. Kleponis I Two monarch butterflies, Four orange, red and black wings, Violate tiny wild violets. II Two towheaded boys, Toy pistols in hand, Charge down the hillside. III Two milkweed seeds, Crazy lost snowflakes, Bend tips of blades of grass. IV Two…
by R.M. Juillerat Life went on when the rain didn’t stop. It started with the glaciers melting. Then the tsunamis and hurricanes, eyes small, teeth barring, hit the coasts. No one listened. Earthquakes decimated eighty percent of countries, and no one listened. No one listened when the rain came, when…
by Michael McLean Lost! Second day on the job, and he was lost. Steering the white pickup onto yet another branch of a seemingly endless gravel road, Buddy Mack felt his anxiety rising. He had grown up in this country and thought he knew his way around. But since he…
by Michael H. Brownstein Everything you wear, you wear to its grave, your gray stockings a small hole near the big toe, its color an undistinguished gray your shirt with a stain your pants frayed at the bottom, a rip in one pocket, change falling freely creating melodies you are…
by Joseph V. Kleponis The downtown stretch Of the Southeast Expressway Is underground now; The North End and Downtown, Financial District and Waterfront, Are connected, yet separated, By the expanse Of the Rose Kennedy Walkway. Of course, the older neighborhoods – South Boston and Roxbury, Dorchester and its other half…
by Tim Blaine It was mid-morning when Vlad D’Agostino leaned over the railing along the quarterdeck of the Magnificent. He watched as the rest of the crew made their way down the pier and into the city. The sun had yet to burn through a dense fog that lingered, siphoning…