by Jason Grant The entire king-sized bed is mine now, but I can’t seem to move from the left side to the right because on the nights you were here—laying there—if I dared move from my side to yours in the middle of the night it was like I-was-crossing-some-boundary you-needed…
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 Carolyn Weisbecker My hand flew to my nose, and I held my breath as I stepped through the doorway. What am I doing here? A foul, but unmistakable odor hung from the ceiling and followed me as I carefully walked through the house. Death, left alone for too long,…
by Betsy Martin One sits reading, his face a meeting ground of several tectonic plates that collide to form his private himalayas. Another sits in the bedroom and sews. She tries to stitch past onto present by making for her daughter a pair of neon-orange- and-brown checked bell-bottoms, this being…
by Michael H. Brownstein 1. The door in the wall led to an inner sanctum and the path through the garden to a paved road narrow and bent, through and over. We took it, step by step, against ancient brownstone, gray brick and rock, until the house we never lived…
by Lisa Harris First principle: Perfection, peace, wholeness, being complete: one. We speak into each other’s lives and begin becoming. Tenor toned your velvet voice makes a pillow for me to choose. When I misunderstand or don’t hear, I trust timber and pitch. I trust you. On a campus where…
by Lisa Harris A square, a cross, and four directions place us in space and make us stable. We are fixed in a stillness that draws our energy in. Seeking a haven, we read signs and symbols silently. We want a house to hold us the way we hold each…
by Alita Pirkopf In the clean, clean house, all the cleaning wiped away everything that touched me. No fingerprints on glass- topped tables or glass doors that slipped open and slid back. In a glass house almost without breathing, I watched my own master mother (who painted O’Keeffe animal skulls…
by Don Mager Fourteen days away on business else- where, sunset is back at work pouring spot-lit white across all the backside windows of each hill slope house. Inside, floors and walls are puddled. The puddles shift and shrink. Outside, the saturated trees blaze in Boric Acid shimmers and green flames. Sun’s…
by John P. Kristofco what the house keeps secret, things not meant for life outside the walls, only ours to tell, and so we never do: how we look when we get up, stairs we climb, noisy doors, dust and socks on floors, our angry words and soft, “her kerchief…
by Alena Orrison The cold iron of the unicorn statue, Lying substantially in my hand Creates a glimpse into long ago. Gentle warmth from morning’s sun glow Grandfather’s face smiling and tanned. Just out of my grasp hang firm swollen oranges Reflecting the vibrancy of the sunrise. From a bough…