by Holly Day The voices of frogs are coming in through the air conditioner vents so loud in the rain it sounds like they’re in here with us perhaps hidden under the couch, or nestled a comforter clustered in a group of bright skin and gold eyes watching us from…
by Susanna Hargreaves Do my heartfelt words matter and will my children even remember the sound of my voice Will they think of me when they hear the faint keys of a piano or when they smell blueberry muffins baking and when they see the pile of books next to…
by Chris Boucher My pet beagle is expanding my world. One day she sniffs out rabbit pellets behind the house. Another day it’s a freshly-dug hole under the shed – my neighbor says a hedgehog did it. On yet another, she returns proudly with a deer antler in her mouth….
by Holly Day I watched him float away like a single tuft of dandelion fluff out of my arms and out of the house and into his own life and then the door closed and I was alone. There was not one moment in the past twenty years that I…
by Rosemary Dunn Moeller Along Nantucket Sound at Dennisport where Swan River runs out into the sea, I watch buffleheads, far out from shore, who don’t know we’re cold today, the middle of winter, wind chill factor too low to watch for long. Sunshine’s brightest this afternoon when I step…
by Craig Fishbane Before Enrique was deported last month—if he did, in fact, get deported—I liked to joke that he was my one student who did his best work when he was not on Earth. I remember how during his last day in school, he leaned across his desk, gawking…
by John P. Kristofco …when we add up all the numbers, shut the lights, shutter the concession stands, set behind like years, people who have come and gone, seasons we’ve forgotten though once they stirred our hearts, quiet now like baselines, bleachers, segments of our souls subtracted, risen up like…
by David Armand Every weekend my father sat on the sofa all day watching movies like Lethal Weapon, Platoon, Lonesome Dove, Tombstone, and all five Rockys back-to-back. His favorite one was The Abyss with Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and sometimes he’d watch it— rewind the tape he’d rented…
by Dean Knight The party was on April Fool’s Day, but Daniel had no thoughts of practical jokes. Although Claire had been only sporadically returning his texts recently, tonight, he felt, would be when things would get back on track again. It’s a major step to proceed beyond the first…
by Amy Covel I’m not here To be a hero Just a world-shaker Here to erupt As a volcano A ticking time bomb Whose time is up Remembered only For that one sudden Explosion.