by Elizabeth Shannon A solitary nail… in a wall where the wasp nest once hung, hardly a sigh from his side of the bed here only holds a remainder of lace woven from mud, a life delicately spun I observed this empty space daily my gray paper palace, our imaginary…
by Chris Boucher Following the hollow sound of a bounding ball Into an empty early morning gym, an old man starts to shoot solo. The long dormant floor creaks and moans And the rim rattles in the echoey cold— Echoes like his old skills. He lives with that Like he…
by Chris Boucher My pet beagle is expanding my world. One day she sniffs out rabbit pellets behind the house. Another day it’s a freshly-dug hole under the shed – my neighbor says a hedgehog did it. On yet another, she returns proudly with a deer antler in her mouth….
by Robert Barhite I hate cops. I grew up in Postville, Iowa, way up in the northeast corner of the state and not too far from the Mississippi River. Nothing much ever changed in my hometown. I went to the same red brick two story grade school built in 1908…
by Elliott Laurence She’s closer to ninety there she is though this sunny morning making her way Hitch in her stride cane in hand. years of osteo’ I’d bargain have left her hunched over. Past the used car lot. Pushing her way past the H&R Block. Never seen her turn…
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 Casey Dare the smooth bore, breech-loaded, single barrel shotgun bangs an answer to the whispered questions— why do they fight? why does mama cry? is he still hitting her? Why won’t someone help us? cold December night lit by lights on the evergreen trees, blues reds whites blinking…
by Robert Scott Because he was afraid, John Kirk Ormsby, the new managing overseer to that great patch of fertile North Carolina land known as Excelsior Plantation, had passed the night in his office and not at home comfortably in his wife’s good bed. The whitewashed mill office was dimly…
by Crystal Wesley I feel swindled. Bamboozled. My millennial past has lied. Long lived a hatred inside my “friends” That I thought with ancestry had died. I knew racial issues still exist, But they were few and far between. Yet with the emergence of one figure, New faces on old…
by Casey Dare For Ensign Paul H. Backus, USS Oklahoma He whispered softly for the 2403 Why them and not me? Generations later a monument would proclaim Those words etched in granite from this day. Flags fly over green fields next to hotdog stands and turn-styles Marking time, click clack…