by Kathleen Katims I am shy. In my Brooklyn elementary school, it is painful for me to look in people’s eyes, to speak up, to say what I am thinking. In every encounter people tell me they can’t hear me and to speak louder. In sixth grade the teacher asks…
by Leisha Douglas of the parts is still parts unified in some other form. Within us, galaxies, though we prefer not to think of ourselves as metal, mineral, liquid. Cells renew every seven years, so you are not really who you were. You are always exchanging elements, always becoming. You…
by Carol Lindsey “Girls, come on,” Mildred Smith called. “We’ll miss the bus.” Mildred looked over the two girls bounding down the stairs. “Very nice, Evelyn. Rhonda Sue, where are your gloves? A lady never leaves the house without being properly dressed.” Nine-year-old Rhonda Sue pulled a pair of white…
by Vivian Lawry The first person who wasn’t there for me was my overworked, overwhelmed mother. Initially, her body betrayed me. When I was eight or so, she tried—again and again—to give my father the son he so wanted. What she gave him, instead, was a weakened, broken wife. She…
by Mark Conkling Jeremy leaned forward on his handicapped walker. “Mother, that’s insane. There’s absolutely no reason to burn the house down.” Naomi crossed her arms. “Do what I say. Burn it down the day after my funeral.” “But why?” “I don’t ever want anyone else cooking in my kitchen,…
by Judy Richardson Emma pushed open the door to the university bookstore and paused, allowing her eyes to adjust to the artificial light. Shades on the far wall dimmed the sun. Inside quiet and calm blended with the ticking clock and buzzing lights. A clerk perched behind the counter, scribbling…
by Rich Ives In the village of Arriving there was a man who had the gift of sadness. He lived with a knobby woman with ponderous calves. At the tavern this man frequented, each of the women decorated their noses with bent fishhooks, and there were more women than there…
by Justin Marrier I. Whatever the sex of the visage, Male and Female, Mother and Father, Son and Daughter. Do we cast these roles of life From the face alone? II. Fresh from the womb or elderly dilapidated, an age is untold behind this mask. The talons of Corvus dance…
by Tunisia Squire Stormy nights have come and gone but this night seemed to last forever. It feels as if the storm is getting worse by the second. Rain falls down from the sky with lightning and the thunder combine. There is a house, a pleasant house with a white…
by Martha Phelan Hayes It’s the summer of 1989, and I am thirty-five years old. My son is twelve. He just finished his all-star baseball season. I worried (I am a young mother who’s yet to learn the futility of such angst) that he wouldn’t make this highly competitive team….