by Virginia Winters-Troche I last autumn i was watching the leaves fall and i was thinking if leaves could do it so could i, so i decided to fall in love give myself away like the sun, I could make someone less lonely even if that someone wasn’t me, thinking…
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 Janis A. Brams Perspective One: The Storm Sometimes we sense the storm coming. We smell rain in the air or recognize the aches that accompany damp weather. Other times storms take us by surprise. A gentle breeze turns wild, uprooting trees that have stood their ground for centuries. Life…
by G.W. Adamson Caitlyn stood in the living room of her childhood home as if she expected to hear a sound or see someone enter. A yellowed newspaper lay on the dust-covered coffee table. Opening the living room curtains brought light and more dust floating in every direction. It appeared…
by Brian Howlett I can make out a dim silhouette of the first step in the corner of the church basement. It’s an eternity away across the heaving, sweaty dance floor – but as I look down upon my father I know it’s on me to help him ascend from…
by Stephen Mead 1 These berries seem candles within, their blue juice lucent, distilled right on the vine. Malleable hands shape supple bunches, the sun’s aristocracy. How pure is the fingered fruit, clear globes in palms! Could what they capsule be medicine? Multi-tongued? From country to country, healing is an…
by Charles Alexander Neal A long, crooked road stretched between the forested mountains deep in the heart of the country of Mariposa. It was evening and the sun painted the sky in shades of red and gold and cast dusty shadows on the beech trees surrounding a village. The evening…
by Brianna Kittrell She greets you at birth, and you cry in her presence, still she becomes a part of your essence. She sways with the trees and rustles the leaves, and her beauty deserves more praise than it receives. Though she is giving and kind, she is often taken…
by Jenny Andrews Days lie down crumble all around ruins obscured in mid-February shadows Sundays lost amid gods long forgotten. Sleeping in with a remembrance of his hand at the small of my back, resting there, his lips flutter behind my earlobe, the scent of him-musky like sweat, his kiss…
by Emily Fridley There’s a proverb of sorts that I’ve read somewhere, akin to “God could not be everywhere, so he created angels instead and called them mothers.” Mine must be one of these. For there are few and far between that can even hope to be compared to her…