by Sarah May Wilson Eyes are staring at me from the rearview mirror. Almond shaped and haunted, coal black pupils with flat, sea green irises reflect back. The days have taken their toll on them as each hard year has passed. These eyes have seen too much, endured too much….
by Carla McGill The First Memory—The Last Day of Fourth Grade It was the year that President Kennedy was shot. We were at different schools, but they were just a few blocks apart. When my teacher found out what had happened, she sobbed, her head on the desk, while Barbara…
by Melinda Butler The sun was a yellow ball in the sky, dipping its toe in the purple lake that was the mountain range. Below, a green ocean of grass that ran for miles. Samuel stood in line to get branded by his new employer. The Circle Bar X was…
by Abigail Robinson Amidst their thunderous voices, she is silent, burning with the need to speak. Amidst their thunderous voices, She is seething, shaking with potent thoughts she whispers. Amidst their thunderous voices, She is waiting, in honeyed patient words she sings. Amidst their thunderous voices, She is shaking, clinging…
by Yvonne Higgins Leach Be ready—the inevitable will come. In bewilderment when what you longed for didn’t come to be—a season ended too soon. In the dazed drama of hope’s departure— as she shrugs her anemic shoulders at you. In the capsized moment when your mind cannot bear the pain—and…
by Lisa Harris An undercurrent, cross current, the tide, What water is, what water does, what water knows. It is in the nature of water to flow, to cleanse, To wash away – water is, water does, water knows. I knew water this way: as a creek, a brook, the…
by Laurelann Easton Jennifer tugs her blouse over her stomach, a part of her that has never rounded, and twists the peridot ring she’d put on in place of her wedding band. The band had barely lasted her and David a year, and now they sit together in an iron…
by John Urban Apartment blocks South of campus In the distance, clouds Catch on Mt. Hamilton Yellow lamplight Early evening blue
by Caroline Bruckner He had no name and no place to stay. They called him The Hood sometimes, after Robin Hood, because of the way he lived. Not that he ever stole anything. Nothing worth much, anyhow. If he ever had stuff, he gave it away. He wanted nothing. He…
by Lucinda Watson A crime has been discovered on this Saturday morning. My mother’s perfectly blue like a Maine sky stationery from Tiffany’s has been used to line the rat’s cage. It’s pretty clear who did this but we are lined up anyway. In the front hall underneath the curving…