by Lysette Cohen Dusk had begun to fall as I stepped into my grandmother’s bedroom. Her bed was empty now, but I could still see her tiny frame in peaceful slumber, her chest barely moving the brightly crocheted quilt as she breathed in small puffs. On the dresser, a lone…
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 Lee W. Sang My mother told me copper grows more beautiful and balanced with time. That’s why she gave me the necklace—two simple strands of hammered copper discs. She had bought it as some sort of peace offering, but we both knew she wanted me to be the woman…
by Michael Sandler Call it fierce appetite for gadgets, strawberry huller, a lobster pick good for fishing out olives. Lives imbue my favorite, cracking walnuts in a pinch, juicing lemons— but mostly for exuding garlic. Mom’s joke: a real chef would cook his goose with one. She used to clear…
by Norman Belanger “Oh for cripe’s sake, would you look at that!” Her first sip of soup ends up mostly on the front of her Easter blouse. She daps the tip of her napkin in a water glass, blots at the red stain on floral silk. “For Christ’s sake!” Nearly…
by Paula Nutt The place I’m going reminds me of a newspaper, especially the headlines. Letters and numbers, facts and figures, neatly lined up in rows and columns of black and white. Some catch your attention while others are passed over. But first I must get there. Farm-to-Market Road 917…
by Anne Eston I hold my head the way I held that robin’s egg when I was six. Unsafe in the nest Grandpa stole (he said it fell out of a tree), the egg sat. I took it, was careful… I couldn’t take care of it. Didn’t think it would…
by Bethany Veith Exhausted, she arranged her hands upon the pink flannel blanket wrapped around her silent bundle dressed in grandmother’s ancient white lace Christening dress. Her misty wide eyes flashed and contemplated the absolute miracle and beauty of life and the cruelness of nature. Cradling her angelic daughter one…
by Neerja Raman The eighty-five ghats that form a crescent-shaped riverfront project a majesty that gives perspective to the vicissitudes and vanities of death unfolding in its lap. Janvi has read in a tourist guide that the city of Varanasi derives its name from two rivers: Varuna, which flows from…