by Carol Casey The path is trodden, dusty, level.You know it will take youwhere many have gone. Step off—tangles of brambles,sometimes with blackberries,more often with little clawsthat catch on clothes and skin;and tortuous tree roots—inconvenient, sacred data unearthed—subterranean snakelets somehowsifted into snarls for feet to catch.There are stems that twine…
by Dawn Fryauff No life bears forth from this desert. No seed takes root in this place. Be fruitful and multiply is Not A promise, but instead A command. Unfulfilled; My failure punctuated Monthly by Deep contractions of longing Birthing sand and scorched seed From this withered waste of a…
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 Andrew Clark Dewey cracked open a bottle of water and drank deeply. “Oh, damn,” he muttered, half coughing, half spitting water down his chest and all over his dusty boots. “This water is piss-warm.” “What’d you expect, those bottles have been sittin’ out here all day,” Harris said, as…