by Sarah May Wilson The intermittent bumps of the rail connectors jostle me against the vinyl seat back. Aside from that I am quite comfortable. I didn’t expect a train to be so accommodating to its passengers. Looking up and out through the window to my left, I have two…
by Ashley Henyan Today I took my dog Chilly, a white miniature poodle, to a brand new groomer named Sally. After I dropped him off I ran two blocks down the street to pick up a prescription from CVS. I was expecting to wait at least an hour and thought…
by Scott Patterson I am the hanging tree, with a thirst for saltwater windswept but strong no shade from the sun I command the sky above the sea but not your twisted path here among the weeds. I am the hanging tree, supported by century old roots Black-burgundy birds remembering…
by Elizabeth Penn I was dying. Or at least, that’s what the doctors told me. I had gone in for a checkup for a headache that had lasted for a few weeks, or was it months? It was 6 months since my husband, Bill, was murdered. And while I would…
by Benny Diaz III Rudy Esparza didn’t like to dance. He couldn’t understand how people could do it, how they could coordinate their hands and their legs to do what the music told them to do. Even as a child, Rudy hated to dance. He used to make fun of…
by Rebecca Carenzo “If you can guess what I have in my pocket, you can have it.” “Excuse me?” I ask, turning to face the harried-looking stranger who’d just addressed me out of the blue. I didn’t have a chance to finish my answer before I felt the forceful jab…
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…