By April Garcia Middle class. Trailer trash. Stay-at-home mom. If staying home to raise my son, the noblest of all arts, deems me ignorant– then ignorance is bliss. Narrow-minded. Success-blinded. Workin’ for the man. You slave away, –9 to 5 I work 24/7 shaping the mind of an innocent young…
By Benjamin Jackson My daughter Emma was born in the last cold days of December, 2001, unmoving, unbreathing, unable to live without immediate surgical intervention. The very first thought I had upon seeing my very first daughter for the very first time was that I hoped I hadn’t made a…
By JB Mulligan The flat and pallid path to all horizons narrows to the domed demise of an ashen, ill-lit sky. Light breaks through the drear overhead sometimes (enough to remember, anyway), and stains the jagged dirt (that once the sky was washed, translucent, the distant rim aglitter in a…
By Andrew Clark Mr. Philips quietly wrote his name on the chalk board and then turned to face us. Mrs. Fisher, my second grade teacher, had left the classroom just moments before, taking a brief refuge in the teachers’ lounge where all the teachers go to regroup, rehearse battle strategies,…
in memory of Russell Libby, 1956—2012, former Executive Director of MOFGA By Cynthia Brackett-Vincent Paint your nails in the Jeep as your husband drives south. But then you hear rain on the roof and remember his poem—rivers flowing, water meeting. Shop at Toys R Us for your granddaughter’s birthday. But…
By Lynn Vroman “Hold it in the crook of your shoulder, boy. The kick will knock you on your ass if you don’t.” “It’s too heavy. Where’s the .22?” “That’s a girl’s gun.” A string of tobacco flies from Dad’s mouth, landing in a brown puddle on the snowy ground….
By April Garcia Seamlessly, unending hours. The body feeling things it never knew existed. As though the inside of me has come alive. Then comes the pushing. If you’re lucky, it’s quick. I count, we count, the nurses count: 1… 2… 3… and so it goes until we reach 10….
By Shandrease Cushionberry Emerging from the pond Fully bloomed in the rays Lotus flower bomb In the grass we lay Protect me with white heather In these summer days For autumn will arise Dormant begonia haze Stagnant brumal solitude Bring pink carnation craze And with spring in full bloom Withered…
By Dora Simpson Sunlight streaks awning tops spilling ink sketches down Rue Cler as delivery trucks wrangle narrow cobble and brick, side-by-side they purr. Yesterday’s swine hangs upside-down from meat hooks, stripped of its hide; sides of beef with s-shaped, naked spines drape over white, market smocks as men shoulder…
By Shandrease Cushionberry My father was a shadowy Moreno until the day of his funeral. He was what I would call a black Dominican. My mother is a black woman. I am her only child, her little black girl. “Te quiero mi negrita,” she sometimes says to me. And I…